I was born in Whittier, CA.  We moved around a lot when I was a kid, but always resided in southern California.

I earned my MFA in 1995 at CGU, Claremont Graduate University, in Claremont, CA, Previous to that, in 1993, I earned my B.A. in Studio Art at CSUSB. Though I went to about 4 different community colleges I finally completed my AA at Valley College in San Bernardino in 1991.

I’ve exhibited in many Los Angeles galleries, such as William Turner, Art Center, AnLab, at the Brewery, and BGH Gallery, including representation with Patricia Correia Gallery in Santa Monica, CA, at Bergamot Station.  I have also exhibited in Hawaii, and internationally in Marseilles, France.  My artwork has been featured in magazines such as ArtScene, Coagula, and New York based Zing magazine.  I have had the support of writers such as Mat Gleason, Kerry Kugelman, Betty Brown, Dick Smith and Peter Frank.  Images of my artwork can be accessed on line, and through exhibition catalogs.

My artwork includes painting, sculpture, wall-works, and installation art. I use an eclectic range of media, generally determined by the idea I want to convey.

My hobbies include cake-decorating, sailing, walking on the beach, and reading about ‘stuff.’  I also collect PEZ and stackable Russian Dolls.  My favorite natural scenes are caves, and I’m fascinated by geo rocks.

My parents were both artistic.  As a seamstress/tailor, my mother exposed me to the fabric outlets in Los Angeles, to pattern making, and drawing pastel portraits. My father was a carpenter but also earned recognition in the Korean War through Life Magazine for his Tiki Art.

I am an Associate Professor currently teaching drawing, painting and Art Appreciation.

Renée A. Fox makes mixed media paintings based on natural found objects. The paintings use traditional painting and drawing techniques to portray a sensually feminine, idealized interpretation of nature, often by changing singular floral subjects into sexualized icons. Born in Frederick, Maryland, Renee attended the Corcoran College of Art and Design in Washington D.C. and graduated from Otis College of Art and Design after relocating to Los Angeles, California.

She has exhibited internationally and completed several independent curatorial projects including “Reclaiming”, 2003, an exhibition of Otis alumni at the historic location of the old Otis administrative building in downtown, LA and “Reclaiming: Intergeneration”, same location with Jenée Misraje and Kate Harding. Fox is currently director of the Beacon Arts Building in Inglewood, California and organizes the annual Inglewood Open Studios.

The Four Seasons of Flora & Spice is a fine art exhibition which takes us thru the seasons turning the gallery space into a veritable garden of flora, citrus blends, and spices by twelve artists. Works in the show comprise a variety of genres and excellent craftsmanship by artists who have received critical acclaim, having shown at national and international venues. Many of the works are a celebration of the continuum of life.

Curated by Charity Burnett and Liz Gordon.

Opening reception – Saturday May 12th – 7pm to 10pm.
Artist Panel Discussion - Saturday June 16^th – 1:30pm to 3pm
Exhibit featured through Tuesday June 26, 2012

Curator Charity Burnett hosts micro-exhibitions at Sangria Fine Arts in the San Fernando Valley and curates in Los Angeles. She facilitates Sangria Studio Visits and Lunches for artists, curators, and collectors. Burnett also leads groups of art enthusiasts on tours of the Los Angeles art scene. Burnett attended Art Center College of Design and is a painter having shown at Bergamot Station, Angels gate Cultural Center, and Andlab.

Curator Liz Gordon developed The Loft at Liz’s in 2007 (above Liz’s Antique Hardware) as a unique and innovative Los Angeles gallery.  With a featuring of both renowned and emerging artists the gallery provides a blend of fine art, artist panel talks, various workshops and a wide variety of cultural events.  Supporting both southern California artists as well as a myriad of international exhibitions, The Loft at Liz’s continues to shift the paradigm of the modern gallery through its featuring of both contemporary works and historically significant contributors to the arts.

FEATURING ORIGINAL WORKS BY: Sharon Bell, Karin Lisa Atkinson, Alison Foshee, Bob Francis, Renée A. Fox, Lynda Pizzuto, Karen Sikie, Mike Street, Sharon Suhovy, Ruth Trotter, Jane Park Wells, Lori Zimmerman.

LOVE URBAN NATURE sustainable photo artworks are companion-images to my writing The Book of Peace: Intention and Desire. To date individuals in over 135 countries on the Internet have viewed LOVE URBAN NATURE photographs, and read my book of peace.

LOVE URBAN NATURE artworks are flowers and fauna with healing properties that were photographed in Los Angeles at dawn in natural direct Sunlight. Observing nature inspires and instructs sustainability.

LOVE URBAN NATURE artworks are to the best of my ability sustainable. All artworks are printed using Light on professional photographic grade aluminum, 100% museum archival quality Cotton, and light-sensitive photographic Fuji Super Gloss Plant Cellulose Polymer paper. All artworks use the minimum amount of raw materials needed to produce the finished artwork. All back mounting, and hanger hardware are made from reduced and/or recycled products.

Sustainability not only refers to the materials from which the artwork is made, but also the life span expectancy of the materials. Industry professionals have rated the aging-process, and longevity of my photographic artwork materials to last between 40 to 70 years.

LOVE URBAN NATURE artworks are created with eternity in mind, and prosperity at heart. They can be gifted, then re-purposed to re-gift to keep on giving generations of love, light and life.

LOVE URBAN NATURE is photographed and made in Los Angeles, California. No trees, animals, people, or the planet were harmed making LOVE URBAN NATURE

Artist Biography

Lynda Pizzuto is an artist whose work has been exhibited in Los Angeles, New York and France. Venues include Denise Bibro; Jan Baum, Commissary Arts; Lois Neiter Fine Art; Art Basel- (Aqua Art Miami); Mona Bismarck Foundation -Paris, France; and Biologique Centre International d’Art -Pont Aven, France.

Pizzuto’s work is in many private and public collections including:

Arthur Blank Family Foundation, Atlanta, Georgia

Joan Paydon- Paydon@Rygal, Los Angeles, California

Chinese World Trade Center, Beijing, China

Mandarin Oriental, New York, New York

MGM Grand, Las Vegas, Nevada

Shangri-La, Pazjou , China

Bellagio, Las Vegas, Nevada

She was awarded and Artist in Residence in Pont-Aven, Brittany, France and also was a guest teacher at RISD accredited school in Pont-Aven, Brittany, France.

Artist Statement

I have always been interested in patterns found in the natural world. My work suggests a juicy, organically ordered entropy. Many of my paintings have references to botanical forms and could be thought of as abstract, fantastical gardens.

With the employment of an unlikely combination of stain and pouring techniques, using acrylic and ink, drawing with markers on unprimed canvas, combined with embedding textile, beaded textile and other collage elements literally into the surface of the canvas, this for me has developed into an alchemic process. That is, to change the materials from one state to another to have them transcend their forms to give life to another expression. Matter transmutations. Also considering color from Alchemic text: nigredo-a blackening, albedo-a whitening, citrinitas-a yellowing, rubedo-a redding or purpling.

I live and work in a garden so how would I not be seduced? For me, everything exists in the garden, the entire cycle of life, and of course the joy and wonder of a flower. I view the world as a Taoist, seeing a symbiosis of patterns that cannot exist without one another.

Though my work is labor intensive and in some ways highly controlled, I try to live by the notion of no rules only improvisations.

As well as maintaining a studio practice and teaching, Trotter has extensive curatorial experience and has served as a panelist and advisor to several arts organizations in the Los Angeles area.  She has received several research grants for teaching, as well as for her studio work.  Her current work explores her obsession with modernism, but is inspired by the intersection of art and psychology in early twentieth century modern art movements.

Artist Biography

Alison Foshee was born in San Diego, California in 1969.  She received a BA in Fine Art from Occidental College in 1991 and an MFA in printmaking from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1995. She shows in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Atlanta, Houston, New York and Tokyo.  Her work has appeared in many publications; the Los Angeles Times, Art in America, Artweekly, Sculpture Magazine and the New Yorker, to name a few. Alison Foshee currently resides in Portland, Oregon.  She calls her process the  “craft sciences”, which describes a high emphasis on finish and the elevation of low materials and traditional craft arts. While employing the scientific method of hypothesis and experimentation, She reveals something about the material’s original function that will inform its new shape and content.
Featured in our exhibit “The Four Seasons of Flora & Spice”

Artist Statement

Thumbtacks and pushpins explode into extravagant floral arrangements.  Staples trace the jagged contour of a leaf.  Office labels spin out in hot, firecracker explosions.

For many years I have been exploring the artistic potential of everyday “stuff”.  I enjoy working these raw materials with the geeky intensity of a Rubik’s cube puzzle master and relish the challenge of finding new meanings in objects that have become banal. In the process, I try to reveal something about the material’s original function that will inform its new shape and content.

In search of my muse, I scour our urban city centers, like an orchid thief in the Amazon, for weird and marvelous products like the next generation of folder dividers or the latest technology in bendable pencils. I find these readymade oddities ever fascinating because of their dual nature as consumable goods. They are simultaneously indispensable and without value; perhaps, a not-so-subtle metaphor for culture’s subjective/plastic definition of what is precious.

While materials have always been a defining element of my work, it is also important to me, the manner in which they are manipulated. This involves using the material as it was originally intended, but in an exaggerated way.  For example, The white office label, aside from being a surprisingly aesthetic product with subtle variations from bright white to cream, are effective tools for creating new meanings; an empty canvas that can signify anything. Its usefulness is based on a balanced system of raw data and personal interpretation. The information chosen is suddenly meaningful and that which is deselected becomes irrelevant.  Through layering and patterning, one is not only articulating an image, but the resulting “paintings” are depictions of a change of mind.

I often call my process the “craft sciences”. This self-definition not only describes a high emphasis on finish and the elevation of low materials and traditional craft arts, but also alludes to a natural science aesthetic in the work. This can mean overtly referential imagery, like finely articulated leaf structures to more abstract allusions to sub-atomic particles and cell clusters.  My fractal-like repetitive process and sense of visual hyperbole are fueled by scientific wonder but rely on an obsessive work ethic; a patience integral to craft and founded by artisans who steadfastly hunch over their looms and needles.

I have been in the professional graphic design and advertising business for over 30 years, as an art director, graphic designer and creative director. What I’ve always known all these years is that I truly love photography. I have worked with many excellent and gifted photographers creating thousands of marvelous images for a variety of clients, but always striving, when appropriate, to transcend commercial photography and taking the work to a higher level. Of
course that didn’t always happen, which is the pesky thing about working with advertising clients.

Left to my own devices though, I can acheive my vision my way. My skills in graphic design and the graphic arts enable me to enhance that vision to a point where the viewer is drawn in to share my view. I imbue the images I capture with clarity and style that enhances the reality of the subjects by inviting the viewer to see not only incredible detail, but also the overall grace of the subject as the observer steps back.

As some of nature’s most varied and quietly spectacular output, flowers, as well as other perhaps more mundane, but no less interesting, bits of the plant world, provide endless detail and visual intrigue. The closer I get, the more amazed I am. I’m constantly surprised at the unexpected—be it the point of view or the specimen itself. As with most natural photography, this is more discovery than invention.  Focusing on relatively small subjects, in extreme close up, reveals incredible details. Some of these revelations are surprising if not downright astonishing. Many seem foreign, even other-worldly. Nature at this level can be truly spectacular.

I try to capture and convey more than just botanical minutiae; I also appreciate the graphic form and structure. Gesture and a sense of motion are also qualities that I very often find, which can give the subject some personality, attitude, and most of all character. They are more akin to portraiture than still life.

Aging gracefully is a recurring theme in many of these images as well. The perfect flower, in all its perky glamor and exhibitionism, is stunning. However, a flower or some other bit of flora past its prime, is yet another state of grace. The elegance of decay is what intrigues me the most.

These images are captured at a very high resolution that provides not only incredible detail but astonishing color and tonal depth. The lighting is very soft and is most elegant in its simplicity and focus—that which is closest to us is both brighter and sharper. Though the process is digital, it is only a means to fully realize the final image and the print. I do not use digital effects to embellish or substantially change the image. The subject is as I captured it.

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Artist Statement

As some of nature’s most varied and quietly spectacular output, flowers provide endless detail and visual intrigue. The closer I get, the more amazed I am. With my images, I reach beyond the typical and strive for the unusual—be it the point of view or the specimen itself. As with most natural photography, this is more discovery than invention.

Aging gracefully is a recurring theme in many of these images as well. The perfect flower, in all its perky glamour and exhibitionism, is a stunning thing, yet a flower past its prime is another state of grace. The elegance of decay is what intrigues me most.

This work could be described as portraiture. The simple lighting, the singular subject, and featureless background support this notion, but there has to be more to it than that. Not unlike a good portrait, I want the image to communicate….give you something that is much more than a nicely composed pictorial record. I won’t presume to tell you what your response should be. That, hopefully, will be your discovery.

Editioned, signed prints are available in several sizes up to 60 inches or larger.

ARTIST STATEMENT Encaustic Noir

Obsolete, old news, no longer needed, antique, nostalgic…words that describe the elements of these mixed-media works. Before I-PADS, Kindles, Nooks and computers there were printed books. Before search engines, we went to the library or bookstore to research something.  The bookshelves held the books that we traveled for. Before I-PADS, I-Phones & Websites, there were portfolio books.  We printed, edited, bound and then carried or Fed-Exed our brand, our identity, our style of work to potential clients.

I have always prided myself on staying modern, ahead of the technical curve. Spending months on a 40 foot long technical nightmare for the 2006 Venice Biennale of Architecture started me thinking about using my arms beyond my wrists again as well as working with texture and dimension. I felt that I had mastered the 2-D image and that it was time to move on to something new. An exhibit that I saw at the Samuel Dorsky Museum in 2005 sparked my interest in incorporating encaustic (beeswax) into my work. Neil Trager, the director, gave me a tour of the museum when we first met to discuss my future my one-person show.  I took three workshops to learn how to work in this new (for me) ancient medium.  I started in spring, 2007, not long after my 40’ long technical nightmare was exhibited at the front entrance of Photo LA.  The image was so perfect that it appeared cold and lifeless – as any art form that doesn’t include the human touch usually feels. Tagging the piece soon after (along with a dozen infamous graffiti writers) allowed me to bring life back into the work.  Making my statement that I had had enough of these intensive digital creations.

Renew, re-use, assemblages, collage, unique objects of art are the words that describe the finished pieces. Life kept getting in the way for me to fully engage with the medium, but the wax still called to me.  Strange wonderful moments happen when I focus on the work and it seems to open a portal, a channel, to another world or dimension. It all came together in the past two years and the wax and I have bonded into a strong, spiritual partnership. The small wood panels are pieces of no longer needed bookshelves and crates from Acres of Books, a bookstore in Long Beach that closed in 2010 after 75 years. The other wood panels come from Ocean Park home re-model scraps and demos, leftover scraps from the new museum of flying construction and wood that I have had sitting around the house or studio for more than 20 years.

The archival prints are from either my portfolio books and files with new prints on handmade paper from my existing digital files. The pages are from books that I have read and shelved, some dating back to the early 1960’s.  Packed and moved numerous times over the almost 50 years that I have owned them.  Many of them unreadable for years, they served only as a reminder of the lovely hours that we spent together. I had a passion for reading and devoured a couple of books a week while growing up.  It appears that I only saved the ones in the Gothic genre, a genre I loved so much that I even took a college class in it.  And then specialized in creating art that evoked the mood.  The newer books are pulp fiction that I read and marked up for my Urban Noir/LA-NY project.  In the 2011 works, the pages are from stories set in the same city as the images were taken. The twine is purchased brand new, but from an old fashioned hardware store on Lincoln Blvd in Venice.  And the beeswax is blended on a kitchen stove in Sonoma. The elements come together and create another soul.

Helen K. Garber’s work provided courtesy of DNJ Gallery in Santa Monica and featured for our exhibit “One Shot : The City”.

Born in Tennessee (1990), the artist lives and works in Los Angeles.

By the age of ten, Jake had already starred in dozens of national television commercials,
Steven Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence, The Cell with Jennifer Lopez, and was one of the stars on the hit kid’s television series Lizzie McGuire. His fascination with cameras was fueled with his access to them on these sets. Directors and directors of photography allowed him to rack focus, look through the finder, and generally explore a professional camera’s functions. Jake took his first Photography class at the age of 15 using his late grandfathers Nikon, but it wasn’t until a year later that everything seemed to “click.”

He began taking hundreds of photographs and continued to talk cameras with anyone who would listen. As his work gained attention, Jake won 2nd place in the famous lens manufacturer Carl Zeiss’ 2009 International Photo Competition with his photo “Even the Stars Need Help to Shine”. Zeiss continued the relationship by sponsoring Jake on an expedition to Japan in 2010, supplying him with high quality optics.

Most of Jake’s work can be defined as “street photography with cinematic stylings,” but he does not want to limit himself to any one type of photography as he is still finding and refining his artistic eye. Jake mostly works with film and has now amassed cameras ranging from rangefinders thrice his age, to modern day digitals.

In 2010 he spent his summer in Japan for the sole purpose of photography, exploring the streets of Tokyo from sunrise to sunset (though frequently well after) each day. It was here and in his travels that he was able to take many of the photos featured in our exhibit “One Shot: The City“.