Metropolis: Prospects & Observations

Srboohie Abajian, Renée Azenaro, Matthew Cramer, Don Saban and John Smith On View: October 31 - December 11, 2009 Reception: Saturday, November 7, 6-9 p.m. Postcard Return to Brand Library Art Galleries Schedule page Photos from the Opening Reception

The works on view in Metropolis: Prospects & Observations explore the experience and substance of the modern metropolis through the eyes of five artists working in a variety of media. Auto-Portrait L.A., Abajian’s series of large scale mixed media monotypes, highlights the sometimes adversarial relationship between cars and pedestrians in Los Angeles. Abajian grew up in a city where streets teeming with people allowed for serendipitous social interaction; this body of work laments the pedestrian as an unwelcome visitor in our land of automobiles. Azenaro’s work represents the experience of navigating through the alternately mundane and remarkable world around us. The installations and sculptures on view here are constructed with steel wire and convey both strength and fragility. The works have an ethereal, almost liquid quality, in direct contrast to the rigid forms—like chain link fences and window guards—the material typically takes in the urban environment. Cramer’s paintings and drawings document the mark of human activity on the landscape. Canvases that depict shipping containers at the Port of Los Angeles or city busses spread across an endless asphalt parking lot capture a beauty and serenity often overlooked in our day-to-day experience of chaotic city life. His satellite drawings upend the perspective of the traditional cityscape, highlighting pattern and structure in our industrial complexes. The photographs in Don Saban’s Los Angeles After Dark series are all taken between sundown and sunup, but most often in the early hours of the morning when the streets are nearly deserted. Using digital photography and heightened color Saban depicts known and less familiar landmarks in an eerie state of unpopulated repose that is equal parts beautiful and disquieting. John Smith uses a large format camera, long exposures and slow speed black and white film to create his masterfully composed urban landscapes. Smith likes to shoot in the quiet hour just before the sun rises, when the contrast between light and dark is heightened and the dense black curve of a freeway against the soft gradient gray sky evokes longing and mystery. Similarly the silvery blur of traffic or a barreling subway train is a beautiful abstraction that prompts the viewer to contemplate humanity’s rush toward an unknown future.

Srboohie Abajian (Glendale, CA) earned an MFA in painting from the Art Institute of Armenia and studied at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. Her work has been selected for numerous shows, including juried exhibitions at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Gallery 825, and Laguna Art Musem. She received awards at the Palos Verdes Art Center and VIVA Gallery. Her work is in the permanent collection of the U.S. State Department's Art in Embassies program. She has shown internationally at the Leningrad Academy of Art, St. Petersburg, Russia and the Modern Art Museum, Yerevan, Armenia. More information about Abajian's work can be found on her website.	Srboohie Abajian Auto-Portrait L.A. #31 acrylic and oil monotype on raw canvas, 72" x 48"
Renée Azenaro (Redlands, CA) received her bachelor’s degree in fine art from the City University of New York and her MFA from Vermont College. She is currently a senior lecturer at the University of Redlands and has a long history of teaching art to underserved populations at institutions such as the Henry Street Settlement House and the Children’s Aid Society in New York City. She has exhibited extensively in New York, North Carolina, and now California with her work most recently included in the Faculty Art Show at Peppers Art Gallery, University of Redlands. Her work has also been exhibited internationally in Greece and Italy and at present she has a work of sound art in the Blok Gallery’s exhibiton Sound Migrations in New Belgrade, Serbia.	Renée Azenaro Water (detail) crocheted steel, 72" x 120"
Matthew Cramer (Pasadena, CA) received his BFA in painting and art education at Ohio University and an MFA in painting from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. Currently he teaches graphic design at the Camino Nuevo High School in Los Angeles and previously taught for many years at The New School for Arts & Sciences in Bronx, New York. He was the recipient of The Cooper Union School of Art’s Artist-Teacher Summer Residency. Before relocating to Los Angeles he exhibited extensively in New York at private galleries and venues such as the D.U.M.B.O. Arts Center and Marymount Manhattan College’s Hewitt Gallery. Recent Los Angeles area exhibitions include Gallery 825 and MorYork Gallery. More information about Cramer's work can be found on his website.	Matthew Cramer Operations Re-consumption Unit Systems oil on canvas, 28" x 64"
Don Saban (Los Angeles, CA) received his formal training at the prestigious Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, California. He was also a private student of William A. Rohrbach, professor emeritus, University of California, Santa Barbara. Engaged and active in the field of art photography, Saban served as a member of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art Photography Committee and has consulted for the City of Los Angeles Arts and Cultural Affairs Department and Walt Disney Imagineering. Saban’s work has been published extensively in books, newspapers and magazines, including Town & Country, Art Life Magazine, Los Angeles Magazine, GQ, and The Advocate. Recent exhibitions in Los Angeles have been at Antebellum Gallery in Hollywood and Flash Gallery in San Pedro. More information about Saban’s work can be found on his website	Don Saban The Crest archival pigment print, 11" x 14"
John Smith (Los Angeles, CA) is a fine arts photographer as well as an active cinematographer in the film and television industry. In 2007 and 2008 his photographs were honored with merit awards from the prestigous Black & White Magazine and in the October 2009 issue his work is featured in the highly competitive Spotlights section of the magazine. Smith has completed substantial commissions for the Community Redevelopment Agency of Los Angeles, including one in which he documented the City’s seven redevelopment zones. He recently curated an exhibition of photographic works for the Topanga Canyon Gallery. He has been exhibiting steadily in the Los Angeles area at venues including Avenue 9 Gallery, Flash Gallery, Wildfire Gallery, and Electric Lodge and also participates regularly in the Brewery Artwalk at the Brewery Arts Complex. More information about Smith's work can be found on his website.	John Smith Toronto Subway selenium toned silver gelatin print, 14" x 14"

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