Heidi Schwegler 100% Chthonic, 2023 Tamarisk tree trunk, rubber, wood, bronze 52 x 21.5 x 12 inches COLLECTION OF THE LAGUNA ART MUSEUM
Five Mark Moore Fine Art Artists Featured In The Current Art Exhibition at Laguna Art Museum
The Laguna Art Museum “LATEST AND GREATEST” is showcasing its newest acquisitions featuring the works of Mark Bennett, Jennifer Gunlock, Jimi Gleason, Heidi Schwegler, and Robert Standish. This exhibition includes almost 50 pieces that have been added to the museum’s permanent collection, highlighting influential California artists, the connection between art and nature, and a diverse range of California-based artists. The collection also aims to increase representation of women and contemporary themes with a focus on artwork created after 2000.
Visit the Laguna Art Museum before March 30, 2025 to view these “latest and greatest” additions. For more information, visithttps://lagunaartmuseum.org/exhibitions. Don’t miss this opportunity to experience the best of new California art! #markmoorefineart #lagunaartmuseum #markbennett #jennifergunlock #heidischwegler #jimigleason #robertstandish
Digital Capture: Southern California and the Pixel-based Image World, for PST 2024, UCR Arts Museum, Los Angeles, CA, “Pirouetter for CRT”, 2012
Digital Capture: Southern California and the Pixel-Based Image World is an ambitious exhibition spanning six decades (1962–2020s) that investigates the history and creative uses of digital imaging technology, from the genesis of digital imaging in Southern California research laboratories during the Cold War and space race of the 1960s to the ubiquity of digital media in our contemporary world. The exhibition and accompanying publication narrate the ideological shifts that occurred as digital technologies were adopted for artistic ends. Conceptually organized into themes exploring issues of agency, representation, culpability, and connection, Digital Capture features more than 40 artists working across several technological, computing, and imaging media.
Participating artists: Rebecca Allen, Refik Anadol, Natalie Bookchin, micha cárdenas, Liliana Conlisk Gallegos, Nonny de la Peña, John Divola, Dynasty Handbag, EPOCH, Elisa Giardina Papa, Goldin+Senneby, Valerie Green, Lucia Grossberger Morales, Maggie Hazen, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Huntrezz Janos, Eugene Lally, Brandon Lattu, Ahree Lee, David Maisel, Frank Malina, Judy Malloy and Cathy Marshall, Lynne Marsh, Lauren Lee McCarthy, Mobile Image (Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz), Lee Mullican, A. Michael Noll, Mendi + Keith Obadike, Charles O’Rear, Trevor Paglen, Nam June Paik, Sheila Pinkel, Sonya Rapoport, Marton Robinson, Dean Sameshima, Julia Scher, Ilene Segalove, Sonia Landy Sheridan, Barbara T. Smith, Christine Tamblyn, Penelope Umbrico, Stan VanDerBeek, Steina and Woody Vasulka, Gerardo Velazquez, Andrew Norman Wilson, and Amir Zaki. Penelope Umbrico offers a radical reinterpretation of everyday consumer and vernacular images. Umbrico works “within the virtual world of consumer marketing and social media, traveling through the relentless flow of seductive images, objects, and information that surrounds us, searching for decisive moments—but in these worlds, decisive moments are cultural absurdities.”
Umbrico finds these moments in the pages of consumer product mail-order catalogs, travel and leisure brochures; and websites like Craigslist, EBay, and Flickr. Identifying image typologies—candy-colored horizons and sunsets, books used as props—brings the farcical, surreal nature of consumerism to new light.
Penelope Umbrico (born in Philadelphia, 1957) graduated from the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto, and received her MFA from the School of Visual Arts, New York. She has participated extensively in solo and group exhibitions, including at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and PS1 Contemporary Art Center, New York. Umbrico is core faculty in the School of Visual Arts MFA Photography, Video, and Related Media Program. Selected public collections include the Guggenheim Museum (NY), International Center of Photography (NY), McNay Museum of Art (TX), Metropolitan Museum of Art (NY), Museum of Contemporary Photography (IL), Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego (CA), Museum of Modern Art (NY), and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (CA), Los Angeles County Museum of Art (CA), among others. She lives in New York City.
Okay Mountain Water, Water, Everywhere So Let’s All Have a Drink, 2010 Single channel video, 28min COLLECTION OF THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS HOUSTON
Mark Moore Fine Art and the artist are pleased to announce the acquisition of a major video work by artist collective OKAY MOUNTAINby the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston for the Permanent Collection.
Okay Mountain is a nine member artist collective based in Austin, Texas. Formed in 2006 as an artist-run alternative gallery space, the group has exhibited their drawing, video, sound, and performance projects throughout the United States and in Mexico City, and has been widely recognized for its “inventive construction, loving attention to detail and keen-eyed connoisseurship.” Okay Mountain repackages, reconstitutes, and rekindles our consumerist desires with a sardonic edge. Their installations and multi-media assemblage works mimic the stock vernacular of our communal materialism, yet tweak them just enough to reveal our superficial insecurities and convictions. While most artists are alumni of the University of Texas at Austin (TX), others are graduates of University of California Los Angeles (CA), Rhode Island School of Design (RI), and the University of Kansas (KS). Institutional exhibitions have included those at the Blaffer Art Museum at the University of Houston (TX), Austin Museum of Art (TX), McNay Art Museum (TX), Arthouse (TX), University of Tennessee, Chattanooga (TN), and the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum (MA). Their work is included in the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Art Houston (TX), Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art (CT), McNay Museum of Art (TX), Orange County Museum of Art (CA), Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (CA), Santa Barabara Museum of Art (CA), and Vanderbilt University (TN).
Water, Water, Everywhere So Let’s All Have a Drink takes the visual language of late-night television as its basic formal premise. The video, a quick succession of clips meant to invoke the activity of channel surfing, recreates the aesthetic and embodied experience of mindlessly scanning TV. First exhibited at the Austin Museum of Art, the work was projected onto a larger-than-life sculpture of a television set. Since then it has been screened at Prospect 1.5 in New Orleans, the Heuser Art Center, and the Dallas Biennale. Some of the tropes that Water, Water lampoons and celebrates, include, low-budget infomercials, how-to programs, home-shopping networks, sitcoms, and local news programming. The resulting visual assemblage attempts to make sense out of the overwhelming disconnection brought about by contemporary media’s image factory.
With its encyclopedic collection and an exciting schedule of international loan exhibitions and award-winning programs, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston is one of the premier destinations in the United States for art lovers. Established in 1900, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston’s collection numbers nearly 70,000 works and embraces the art of antiquity to the present.
The collecting department of modern and contemporary art has grown to more than 1,400 objects spanning six continents. Major figures in the evolution Modern and Contemporary art, with a particular emphasis on the progress of abstraction, are represented across the 20th century and into the 21st and include works by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and Piet Mondrian. The Surrealist era is introduced with works by Max Ernst, Alberto Giacometti, Roberto Matta, Joan Miró, and Yves Tanguy. Postwar European artists in the collection range from Pierre Alechinsky, Anthony Caro, Niki de Saint-Phalle, and Jean Tinguely to Rebecca Horn, Anselm Kiefer, Giuseppe Penone, and Gerhard Richter. Collecting in the new millennium has opened up new avenues of exploration, from the light-based works of James Turrell, Jennifer Steinkamp, and Bill Viola to artists who challenge accepted art-historical narratives, including Nan Goldin, Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, Do Ho Suh, and Fred Wilson.
Clay Johnson The Last Turn, 2023 Acrylic on panel 24 × 24 in | 61 × 61 cm COLLECTION OF THE FREDERICK R. WEISMAN ART FOUNDATION (Los Angeles)
Mark Moore Fine Art and the artist are pleased to announce the acquisition of a major work by artist CLAY JOHNSON by The Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation.
Clay Johnson (American, b. 1963) was born in Durham, North Carolina, where he studied art and art history at Duke University, receiving a B.A. degree in 1985. He then worked for several years as assistant to the painter Robert Natkin in Connecticut and New York City. He began showing paintings from his first series of mature work in 1998, and has since exhibited in galleries across the United States and in Europe. His work is represented in collections around the world. Clay began work on his Strata Series shortly after relocating to Wyoming, and, while non-objective in nature, the paintings convey a sense of the wide open landscape of the American west. The Atomic Series continues his exploration of formal concerns—light, color, texture—while introducing a more narrative element inspired by the interactions of subatomic particles. Clay currently lives and works in Laramie, Wyoming.
Johnson’s “Strata Series” is a stunning collection of abstract paintings and works on paper that capture the essence of memory and the human experience. Moving to Wyoming, known for its vast open spaces and breathtaking landscapes, served as a major inspiration for his work. While the paintings may not have overt references to the natural world, they convey a powerful sense of the wide-open space and the ever-changing formations of the land.
Johnson views his paintings as collections of moments and experiences that have been collaged together. This mirrors the way our minds construct memories, with layers of different moments and experiences blending to create a representation of a person, place, or idea. In a similar way, Johnson layers many sections over one another in his paintings, keeping the parts he likes and painting over or modifying the less memorable elements. This process of editing and layering reflects the way our brains forget certain experiences and focus on others, creating a distorted but meaningful representation of our memories.
Upon first glance, the “Strata Series” paintings may appear chaotic and busy, but upon closer inspection, the layers reveal a carefully crafted composition. The many layers are distinct and yet seamlessly blend together to create a cohesive whole. This perfectly captures the complexity of human memory, where seemingly unrelated moments and experiences come together to form a unique and meaningful representation of our lives. By incorporating this concept of memory within his paintings, Johnson invites viewers to contemplate their own memories and the ways in which they construct their own realities.
The Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation is dedicated to continuing the legacy and vision of Frederick R. Weisman, an extraordinary entrepreneur, philanthropist, and art collector. He held an uncompromising belief in the cultural value of art and understood the importance of both the individual artist and the creative process. In carrying out Mr. Weisman’s intentions, the Foundation seeks to preserve, collect, and make publicly accessible his collection of modern and contemporary art as a means to strengthen and contribute to the greater artistic and intellectual life of our time. In 1982, Frederick R. Weisman purchased the Los Angeles estate to serve as a showcase for his personal collection of 20th-century art. He and his wife, Billie Milam Weisman, an art conservator and curator, worked together to create a unique environment located within the Mediterranean-style villa. More than four hundred works of art are on display at the Foundation. The collection includes works by European Modernists, including Cezanne, Picasso, and Kandinsky, and Surrealist works by Ernst, Miro, and Magritte. The holdings in postwar art include works by Giacometti, Noguchi, Calder, Rauschenberg, and Johns; Abstract Expressionist paintings by de Kooning, Francis, Still, and Rothko; Color-Field paintings by Frankenthaler, Louis, and Noland; and Pop Art by Warhol, Lichtenstein, Oldenburg, and Rosenquist. Contemporary California works include those by Ruscha and Goode and Super Realist sculptures by Hanson and de Andrea. These holdings are part of a larger collection that Mr. Weisman established as the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation in 1982. Currently, under the direction of Billie Milam Weisman, the Foundation continues to make the collection available through loans to museums worldwide, docent tours at the Los Angeles estate, exhibitions in public-art venues, and the funding of several art museums, including the Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art at Pepperdine University in Malibu, the New Orleans Museum of Art, the San Diego Museum of Art, and the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum at the University of Minnesota, designed by Frank O. Gehry.
Christopher Russell The Explorers #6, 2017 Pigment print sliced and scratched with a razor 36 × 24 in | 91.4 × 61 cm COLLECTION OF THE CROCKER ART MUSEUM
Mark Moore Fine Art and the artist are pleased to announce the acquisition of a major work by artist CHRISTOPHER RUSSELL by The Crocker Art Museum.
Each piece by Christopher Russell (American, b. 1974) is unique and combines color photography and drawing. Based in the Pacific Northwest, Russell has long been taken with the majesty of Carleton Watkins who photographed in that area and others 150 years ago. Russell photographs in some of the same land but from the opposite end of the history of photography. He makes fuzzy or hazy color photographs by limiting the functionality of the lens. The resulting abstract images form the foundation for his own imaginary vistas. He then manipulates the resulting prints, scratching into the emulsion, and sometimes painting over the scratches, creating an artwork that is at once a photograph, a drawing, a painting and a bas-relief.
Russell’s work challenges the traditional conception of photography as producer of evidence and provokes reflection on our understanding of nature and the landscape. He uses historical plant and floral patterns from the Arts and Crafts era of the late 19th to the early 20th Century as source material for his drawing, and thus alludes to the concept of the infinite within nature. Though he pushes conceptual and art historical boundaries, Russell remains a Romanic, and his artwork is a way for the viewer to experience the wonder that he has found, and that continues to inspire him.
Christopher Russell was born in Sacramento in 1974 and received a BFA from The California College of Arts and Crafts and an MFA from the Art Center College of Design. He has had a solo exhibition at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles and his work has been featured in group exhibitions at The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Norton Simon Museum, Berkeley Art Museum, Armory Center for the Arts, White Columns, Tokyo Institute of Photography, and De Appel Arts Center, The Netherlands, among others. Russell also produces his own unique books in addition to his ‘zine Bedwetter. His first novel is Sniper, and other books include Budget Decadence (2nd Cannons Publications), Pattern Book (Insert Blanc Press) and Landscape (Kolapsomal Press) which was included in Phaidon’s The Photobook: A History Vol 3 edited by Martin Parr. His work is included in numerous museum collections including the Brooklyn Museum, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, Los Angeles County Museum, Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Hammer Museum, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography.
The Crocker Art Museum features the world’s foremost display of California art and is renowned for its holdings of European master drawings and international ceramics. The Crocker also holds permanent collections of Asian, African, and Oceanic art, ceramics, and photography. The Museum offers a diverse spectrum of exhibitions, events, and programs to augment its collections, including films, concerts, studio classes, lectures, children’s activities, and more. The Museum has also dedicated the historic building’s entire first floor as an education center, which includes four classrooms, space for student and community exhibitions, the Gerald Hansen Library, and Tot Land. Discover it all at: crockerart.org
ARTSY Featured Exhibition – THE CREATIVE PROCESS: Inside The Studio Of Dennis Ekstedt
Experience the art world like never before with “The Creative Process” series, revealing new works straight from the studio of DENNIS EKSTEDT. Gain a personal look at the artist’s studio practice and discover exciting new art in this exclusive series of ARTSY online exhibitions.
Dennis Ekstedt (Canadian, Born 1961) is a painter based in Vancouver, Canada. He received his Diploma in Fine Arts from Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in Vancouver, B.C in 1986, and his M.F.A from Concordia University in Montreal in 1993. In 2002, Ekstedt was awarded the Eastern Canada prize in the RBC Canadian Painting Competition, and his work can be found in numerous public, corporate, and private collections. Over the years, he has held many exhibitions and received multiple artist grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Quebec. Ekstedt’s work has also been featured in publications such as Carte Blanche Vol 2-Painting (2008) and The RBC Painting Competition: 10 years (2008). He has collaborated with art consultants, including Soho Art Consulting, Kalisher, Art and Objects, and Tatar Art Projects. Currently, Ekstedt is represented by Herringer Kiss Gallery in Calgary, Alberta, Mark Moore Fine Arts in Los Angeles, and Nancy Toomey Fine Art in San Francisco.
🎉 EXCITING NEWS 🎉 We’re thrilled to announce the exclusive ARTSY online exhibition of CHRISTOPHER RUSSELL: RECENT WORK. This highly anticipated exhibition marks Russell’s return to Mark Moore Fine Art, featuring a selection of his “Mountains” series and pieces from his newer series, “The Explorers.” Each unique piece combines color photography and drawing for a one-of-a-kind experience.
Hailing from the Pacific Northwest, Russell’s work draws inspiration from pioneer photographer, Carleton Watkins. But with a contemporary twist! His purposely hazy and abstract images challenge the traditional role of photography in capturing evidence, instead inviting reflection on our understanding of nature and the landscape. His work also incorporates historical plant patterns from the Arts and Crafts era, symbolizing the infinite within nature.
Russell’s art knows no boundaries, blurring the lines between photography, drawing, painting, and bas-relief. But it still maintains a sense of romanticism that will leave you in awe. Don’t miss your chance to view his work at this exclusive online exhibition on ARTSY. 😍
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