The majority of the work in this exhibition was made in the early 1970s. The earliest pieces were completed as I finished my BA and MFA degrees at UCLA.

As a BA student, I primarily studied painting. However, I was required to take a sculpture class to graduate. At that time, I never thought that I would become a sculptor. I took that first sculpture class from abstract sculptor, John McCracken. He was very loose about what the students made, so I suggested that I make a rocking horse out of laminated wood blocks. He went on to ask if I knew how, and I said, no. He said that he didn’t know how either, but to go ahead and try. After 3 classes over a total of 9 months, I was so intrigued by the material and the process, that I continued to make sculpture during the rest of my time at UCLA.

Although I eventually received my MFA in painting, I graduated with a refined body of sculpture large enough to have my first exhibition at Rico Mizuno Gallery in 1972.

My second rocking horse from 1971 will be in this SMC show, and I will also be showing several pieces that were completed for my second solo exhibition, which was at Nick Wilder Gallery in 1977. The SMC exhibition plan goes on to include pieces from the mid-1980s when I was working with Koa wood, while in Hawaii.

2. How did you bring together the pieces in the exhibition?

Most of the work is from my own collection, while several pieces are on loan from private collectors, LA Louver gallery, and LACMA.

3. Is there a distinct relationship between your material (wood) and your forms?

During my days at UCLA there was a lot of construction going on around L.A. All of the wood left over from the buildings was strewn about the construction sites. Seeing this, I had the idea of using two-by-fours, and other leftover wood, to make my sculpture. The wood was free; all I needed was glue. The material was either going to be thrown away or burned in someone’s fireplace. In other words, I was making art out of other people’s trash. This process came about naturally; long before the ecology movement became popularized.

The wood blocks related well to organic forms, it was a very natural material to use. While usually enhancing the form, the way the wood was assembled could cause conflict with it as well. I became aware of incorporating the grain. I began to use the direction of the wood grain to help form the sculpture. More importantly, however, using wood blocks made it possible for me to make radical changes in the sculpture when I found it necessary. This gave me the freedom I needed to tackle the sculptural problems I set up for myself.

4. How were these pieces received when you first showed them?

The 1972 exhibition at Riko Mizuno’s was fairly well received critically, and my friends liked it. My work was quite different for what my artist friends in L.A. were doing at the time. During the 70s, I had other exhibitions with wood sculpture, but rarely sold any. Nick Wilder was the only dealer/gallerist able to sell a few; the locations of these pieces are now sadly unknown. In 1978, LACMA did purchase Impala, with their ‘New Talent Purchase Award’.

5. Do you have any favorite pieces in this exhibition?

The Mexican Dog is my favorite piece in the exhibition. The Cheetah is a close second.

6. Your group of Coyotes in this exhibition was completed 10 years after the earliest pieces. Is there any significance to this group?

My interest in figurative sculpture is more about the life and movement of the form as it is held by the surrounding space, rather than it is about the specific details of a certain individual. Though I use photographs while working, I try to stay away from portraiture and pay more attention to the abstract qualities of the form of the animal. When I portray animals in the wild, it is difficult to use one specific animal; I try to sculpt the essence of what I feel about the specific type of animal.

For example, while in Hawaii, where there are no coyotes, working on this group for 2 years, I drew upon recent memories of the animal to retain the spirit, but abstracted the form. I made up their personalities through the depiction of their individual perceived movements and activated the space through the relationship between the sculptures. With this group I became increasingly interested in the relationship of the sculptures to each other, to their negative space, and the space surrounding them. The idea of negative space is important in all my sculpture, and perhaps this is best illustrated in this group.

7. What similarities/connections do you see between the work in the exhibition and your current work?

The sculptures shown in this exhibition are the initial steps in an evolving process. After my beginnings in wood, I became interested in trying other materials. In 1979, I traveled to Italy, as part of the American Academy in Rome, where I carved in marble. During this time, I was also beginning to think about working in bronze.

Around 1984, I received a Guggenheim Fellowship. This grant enabled me to be able to have molds made of the Koa wood coyotes seen in this exhibition. The following year, I received a National Endowment Grant, so I had the 4 coyotes, a hawk, bobcat, and snake cast in bronze. The ability to cast my work in bronze led to greater exposure and increased sales. It also led to my first commission for the Ronald Reagan State Building in 1990.

I continue to sculpt in wood, stone, and ceramic; I have made many of my preparatory sketches or ‘maquettes’ in ceramic throughout the years. At present, I actually do most of my larger work in polyurethane foam, from which I have molds made, and bronzes cast. Therefore, my method, pasting together blocks and carving away material, has not changed a great deal since my first rocking horse.

Gwynn Murrill

July 2009

Gwynn Murrill Bio

Gwynn Murrill’s first solo show was at Rico Mizuno’s Los Angeles gallery in 1972. Since that first exhibition, her process has continually evolved. Gwynn’s initial pieces, sculpted from found wood, which she had laminated into large blocks, gave way to stone and marble carvings in the early 1980s. By 1990, Gwynn was casting most of her pieces in bronze. She has presented over 36 solo shows and has been involved in more than 50 group exhibitions. Much of her more recent work has centered on public art projects and has increasingly incorporated architectural elements.

Gwynn is drawn to animal forms due to their complex beauty. She says:

“My interest lies in the fact that I use the subject as a means to create a form that is abstract and figurative at the same time. It is a challenge to try and take the form that nature makes so well and to derive my own interpretation of it.

I spend many hours perfecting a piece with the goal to utilize all of the negative space surrounding the form as a vehicle for the abstract part of the sculpture. The negative space is as important to my sculpture as the positive space, evoking somewhat of a Yin and Yang relationship.

Many of the animals I work with are also a part of our life here in the American west, and I truly enjoy expressing my appreciation of their existence.”

Over her career, Gwynn has received many accolades: the Guggenheim Fellowship, a Prix di Roma Fellowship from the American Academy in Rome, and a purchase award from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. This past June 2009, her latest public commission, for The Montana, in Pasadena, received this year’s Public Art Network Year in Review Award.

Gwynn’s work is held by many private collections and can been seen in number of public commissions throughout the U.S. and across the globe. The American Embassy in Singapore displays one of her Eagles, as does the Target Corporation Headquarters in Minneapolis. The City of Obihiro, Japan installed seven of Gwynn’s Deer along its main thoroughfares in 2003, and Los Angeles’ Grand Hope Park is home to a collection of three coyotes, a hawk, and one snake.

©Gwynn Murrill 2009

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In an effort to broaden cultural awareness in the greater Los Angeles area, students in instructor John Zarcone’s painting class at Santa Monica College were asked to communicate the identity of a very specific neighborhood, L.A.’s Chinatown, by creating several representational oil paintings. The results will be on view at the Chinatown Heritage Center from June 6th-July 18th 2009.

There will be an opening reception for the artists on Saturday June 6th from 6 to 9 P.M. Students and faculty are invited to attend. Students and faculty are also encouraged to attend Chinatown Art-night, July 11th 6-9PM, when most of Chinatown’s art galleries will be open to the public for night time viewing.

Chinatown Heritage Center: 411 Bernard St., Los Angeles, CA 90012.

Hours: Wednesday-Friday 11 AM – 3 PM, Sunday 12 – 4:30 PM.

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Upcoming four person faculty exhibit.

Artist Statement
My painting has always been concerned with the possibilities particular to painting. Issues of plastic form, flat shape, pictorial vs. illusionistic space, and the actual space of the object itself. Lately through my use of color and paint application I’ve attempted to infuse my paintings with a sense of lightness, or weightlessness, while also working toward a spontaneity in overall effect. I see this spontaneity and weightlessness as the antithesis of most formal abstraction (or painting in general) where denial of hand, increasingly elaborate supports, and an airless seriousness seem to be the defining norm. Making something that looks like it was made by a machine has never been interesting to me. The quest for industrial perfection in fabrication, and the fetishizing of technology for its own sake, smells like the same old modernist utopianism. Art should never be about refining the product to a salable easily defined model, similar to the last, but not all that different from the first. My method relies on the spaces between resolution and surprise; the unexpected connection, and the freedom to contradict myself.

RESUME

John M. Zarcone

EDUCATION

Art Center College of Design, M.F.A, 1990

Major: Fine Art with an emphasis on painting.

California State University, Northridge. BA 1985

Major: Art 2D.

EXHIBITIONS

Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy one person show, September 2nd-November 30th, 2008. 1201 West Lake Mead Boulevard Las Vegas, Nevada.

I-5 Gallery Biannual juried exhibition, Mat Gleason juror, February 9th-March 15th  2008.  Los Angeles California.

Powell Library, UCLA 1st Annual AHUSA, May11-25, 2007, Los Angeles, California.

I-5 Gallery Group show of Brewery artists, April 6 – 28, 2007, Los Angeles, California.

Haus Guests Benefit group show to benefit Darfur, February 24-March 24, 2007.  The Brewery Project, Los Angeles California.

Glendale Community College Gallery Two person show with Mark Wessel, July 23-August 26, 2005 Glendale California.

I-5 Gallery Group show of Brewery artists, October 16 – 24, 2004, Los Angeles, California.

Square Blue Gallery Benefit show and auction, September 30, 2004, Costa Mesa, California.

Santa Monica College Gallery Faculty Show September 10-October 1, 2004, Santa Monica, California.

The Brewery Art-walk April  2004,  Los Angeles California.

Gallery 825, “Open” Group show juried by Christopher Miles, December  8 –January 18, 2002, Los Angeles California.

Glendale Community College Gallery Faculty Show, September 12-October 18, 2002, Glendale, California.

Valley Vineyard, “Morphe” one man exhibition of recent paintings, March 22 –March 31, 2001, Reseda California.

Holland Tunnel Gallery and The Arboretum of Los Angeles County; Group Show “Cross-pollination” Curated by Susan Joyce and Mery Lynn McCorkle, March 11 -April 2,2001, Brooklyn, New York, and November 4-December 2,2001, Los Angeles California

Century Gallery, Group Show “Recent Gestural Painting” February 1999, Sylmar, California

Post, Group Show, “100 Dollar Show” summer 1998, Los Angeles, California

Post, Group Show, “100 Dollar Show” summer 1997, Los Angeles, California.

Spring Street Gallery, “DADA Downtown Art Tour” October 1996, Los Angeles, California.

Acme, Group Show, “Rove” February 1995, Santa Monica, California.

Woodbury University, Group Show of sight specific installations, Curators: Sally EIesby and

Carolee Toon, “A Constructed View” November 1994, Burbank, California.

Master of Fine Arts Exhibition, March 1990, Pasadena, California.

REVIEWS

Los Angeles Times; Reviewed, David Pagel. February 23,1995.

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

Santa Monica College 1900 Pico Blvd. Santa Monica, CA 90405

Fall 2004; Beginning Design, Drawing I, painting I.

Los Angeles Mission College. Multi-Media Program 13356 Eldridge Avenue, Sylmar, CA 91342

January 1998 to Present; Drawing I -Beginning Drawing; Drawing I -Life Drawing, Drawing II -Life Drawing (Figure); Drawing II -Advanced Drawing (Head, Hands and Feet) Art History 10, Art Appreciation.

Glendale Community College 1500 N. Verdugo Rd. Glendale, CA 91208

Summer 2001 to Present; Beginning Figure Drawing; Advanced Figure Drawing; Painting; Beginning Design; Gallery Practices

Spring 2003 to Fall 2004; Full-time Faculty (temporary)

Los Angeles Valley College 5800 Fulton Ave.  Valley Glen, CA 91401

Summer 2004; Beginning Design

UCLA Extension Interior Design Program 10995 Le Conte Ave.  # 629   Los Angeles, CA 90024

Fall 2002 to Spring 2004; Elements of Design I

Otis College of Art and Design. 9045 Lincoln Boulevard  Los Angeles, CA, 90045

(Evening College and Summer of Art)

Summer 1999 to Spring 2002; Figurative Painting in Oils, Drawing and Composition, Life Drawing, Figurative Painting in Oils, Life Drawing; Foundation Life Drawing, Abstract Painting, Painting Techniques of the Old Masters

Woodbury University.  7500 Glenoaks Blvd. Burbank, CA 91510-7846

Fall 2000 to Spring 2002; Beginning Drawing; Beginning Figure Drawing;

Beginning Design

Antelope Valley College. 3041 West Avenue K, Lancaster, California 93536

January 1999 to December 2002; Beginning Painting; Advanced Painting; Beginning Drawing; Advanced Drawing

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Upcoming four person faculty exhibit.

Artist Statement

By utilizing abstracted imagery that remains open and slightly ambiguous, I seek to bypass or delay immediate categorization through language structures. Through the centralization of negation and reinterpretation, repainting and redrawing, and a sense of internalized place, I seek to sustain an associative dialogue within the work that enables me to find a space that embodies layers of internal/external, invented/ real, and microcosm/macrocosm. Interest to me as of recent is the investigation of an ambiguous, constructed, and animated landscape that is perhaps created by something other than nature and difficult to place within the every day. The interest to me is the confrontation of something outside of one’s normal experience and the possibility of multiple reactions within the center as well as the periphery of this experience.

I have been working with a symbol system that I feel is universal, but also highly personal. Ambiguity is important within the work, as I find this symbol system to be fluid and I feel that the work takes on different references for different people. I seek to inject subtexts through formal elements such as pressure, asymmetric balance and lack of “finish”.

Jenny E.B. Hager

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EDUCATION

• Masters of Fine Arts, Painting, May 1999.

Graduate School of Fine Arts, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA.

• Bachelor of Arts, Studio Art, 1993, Knox College, Galesburg, IL.
• Post Baccalaureate, 1994 – 1996, New York Studio School, New York, NY.
• Residency, January 1993, Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT.

AWARDS AND HONORS

• Olendorf Residency Sholarship, Professional Artist in Residence, Ox-Bow, Saugatuck, MI., 2006.

• Career Opportunity Grant, Joan Mitchell Foundation, 2006.

• Research and Travel Grant, Knox College, 1999-2000.

• Recipient of Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant, 1999.

• Teaching Award, College of General Studies, University of Pennsylvania, 1999.

• GSFA Chairperson’s Merit Grant, University of Pennsylvania, 1997 – 1999.

• Seligmon/von Simpson and Brown Scholarships, New York Studio School, 1995 and 1996.

• Scholarship to the Vermont Studio Center awarded by Knox College Departmental Chairperson. Knox College, January 1993.

• Al Young Scholarship Awards for excellence, awarded by faculty, Knox College, 1992-1993.

TEACHING AND ACADEMIC EXPERIENCE

• Professor, 2002 – present. Drawing I and II, Design, Painting.

Santa Monica College, Los Angeles, CA.

• Professor, 2001 – 2004.  Art History; Renaissance through Contemporary, Art Appreciation, Drawing.  West Los Angeles College, Los Angeles, CA.

• Professor, 1999-2000.   Drawing I, II, and III, Painting I and II, and Printmaking.

Knox College, Galesburg, IL.

• Printing Instructor, 1999.  College of General Studies, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA.

• Curator, MFA Exhibitions, 1998 and 1999, Meyerson Gallery.  University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA.

EXHIBITIONS

2008

• Galesburg Art Center, Galesburg, IL.

• Santa Monica Arts Studio, Los Angeles, CA.

• “Inquiry”, Gross McCleaf Gallery, Philadelphia, PA.

• “All well that begins well and has no end”, 80 WSE Gallery, New York, NY.

2007

• Pharmaka, “Small Wonders 2”, Los Angeles, CA.

• Tarfest, Los Angeles, CA.

• “Art, August, and AC”, Gross McCleaf Gallery, Philadelphia, PA.

• LA Artcore Brewery Annex, Los Angeles, CA.

• “Furious! The Angry Show”, Eyedrum Art and Music Gallery, Atlanta, GA.

• Part of Phyllis Green’s project for Pillow Talk, curated by Mery Lynn McCorkle, Ruth Bachofner Gallery, Los Angeles, CA.

• Primo Piano LivinGallery, “Effimero Meraviglioso”, Lecce, Italy.

2006

• Pharmaka, “Small Wonders”, Los Angeles, CA.

• Perlow-Stevens Gallery, Columbia, MO.

2005

• Cue Foundation, Joan Mitchell Grant Recipient Exhibition, New York, NY.

• Riverside Art Museum, “Off the Wall”, Riverside, CA.

• Chop Shop, Los Angeles, CA.

• Kraft Gallery, Los Angeles, CA.

• Santa Monica College Faculty Exhibition, 2002 – present.

2004

• Arena Division 1, in conjunction with “Santa Monica Originals”, Santa Monica, CA.

• Monster.com, Superbowl Commercial, Los Angeles, CA.

• Edgemar Center for the Art, Benefit for Third World Education, Santa Monica, CA.

• Ohm Salon and Gallery, Venice, CA.

• LA Farm, West Los Angeles, CA.

2003

• New Abstraction, Period Gallery, Omaha, NE.

2002

• Virtual Exhibition, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA.

2000

• Young Talent Exhibition, Washington Art Association, Washington Depot, CT.

• “Sex, Death, and the Subconscious”, Solo Exhibition, Ford Gallery, Galesburg, IL.

1999

• Cohen, Pederson, and Fox Gallery, New York City, NY.

• “Next Exit”, Group Exhibition, Esther Klein Gallery, Philadelphia, PA.

• Large Print Exhibition, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA.

• Solo Exhibition, Blauhaus Independent Gallery, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA.

• MFA Thesis Exhibition, Meyerson Gallery, Philadelphia, PA.

1998

• Folio Print Exhibition, Burrison Gallery, Philadelphia, PA.

• Tyler University Selected Prints Exhibition, Tyler University, Philadelphia, PA.

1997

• MFA Exhibition, September 1997-1998, Meyerson Gallery, Philadelphia, PA.

Slide Registries

• Drawing Center Slide Registry, New York City, NY.

Collections

Riverside Museum of Art Permanent Collection

University of Pennsylvania Hospital

Nick Cave, Performance Artist

Roger and Mary Lou Licht

Rita Taggart

Publications

The City Paper, Philadelphia

Vox, Columbia Missouri

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Open – Monday, January 12 to Thursday, February 5, 2009
Reception – Friday, January 9, 6 – 9pm

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