Mixed Media Lost & Found

Deborah Baca, Jane Brucker, Ursula Kammer-Fox and Leslie Sutcliffe On View: August 8 - September 11, 2009 Reception: Saturday, August 8, 6-9 p.m. Postcard Return to Brand Library Art Galleries Schedule page Kathy Zimmerer reviews the exhibition in ArtScene's Continuing and Recommended Exhibitons (September 2009)

Mixed Media Lost & Found highlights the work of four Southern California artists working in a variety of media to explore themes of memory, loss, rebirth and the significance of objects. Baca’s mixed media drawings and assemblages utilize found photographs and textual narration to give new life to forgotten images. Brucker’s precious metal castings of everyday objects give them a permanence and weight not usually accorded to the objects themselves, forcing us to reconsider them as vessels for meaning. Her Memorial Project uses swatches of clothing to tell stories about their deceased or unidentified owners. Kammer-Fox uses a variety of found objects to create figures that invite viewer interaction and the invention of narratives around each piece. Sutcliffe’s mixed media paintings and drawings incorporate obsolete text and images from books; these familiar pictures and words are thus given an opportunity to convey new meanings independent of their original context.

Scott Heinzerling, a professor of dance at Loyola Marymount University, in collaboration with artist Jane Brucker will present a performance piece at intervals during the opening reception on Saturday, August 8. Works choreographed by Heinzerling have been presented internationally and at local venues such as the University of California Los Angeles, California State University Long Beach, and the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre. As a dancer he has performed throughout the world and with the Ohio Ballet Company and Dennis Wayne and Dancers. Brucker and Heinzerilng will work with selected clothing from Brucker's Memorial Project (2001-2009) to create through movement an additional tribute to the work's narrative.

Deborah Baca (Santa Monica, CA) was born and raised in Los Angeles and studied at Santa Barbara and Santa Monica City Colleges. With experience in a variety of arts related industries, she has been creating art for over two decades exploring a variety of media including painting, drawing, and mixed media assemblages. Baca’s work often incorporates found photographs and emphemera such as letters and postcards that are apt to trigger memories. With these materials and her own painting and drawing she creates vingnettes that give forgotten images and written communications a second life. Often poignant and sometimes fanciful these works of art resonate with viewers by exposing familiar characters (aunts, friends, siblings) and their thoughts and feelings about life’s events as imagined by the artist. Baca has exhibited widely in Southern California at venues such as Gallery 825, Pharmaka, the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, and TAG Gallery. More information about Baca’s work can be found on her website.	Deborah Baca Coin Purse I object, handmade paper, acrylic, watercolor, and pencil, 6” x 4 ¾”
Jane Brucker (Los Angeles, CA) holds a master’s degree in religion and the arts from Claremont School of Theology and an MFA in painting and performance art from Claremont Graduate University; she is currently a professor in the department of art and art history at Loyola Marymount University. Brucker’s projects explore the temporal and fragile nature of human existence and the link between memory and experience. Two bodies of work will be featured in this exhibition. Memorial Project is an installation comprised of swatches from articles of clothing left behind after the wearer has died or moved away. These bits of fabric are simultaneously intimate and universal; they invite questions about the life of the original wearer but at the same time familiar patterns and designs trigger reveries about our own loved ones. The many hundreds of pieces that make up Lost are discarded everyday objects cast in precious metals. “Objects recall memory” says Brucker, “and evoke a sense of familiar beauty.” Things like hairpins, lipsticks, spools of thread, used tea bags—readily thrown away and rarely appreciated beyond their utility—are given a permanence that forces us to reconsider the character, meaning and associations of each object. She is the recipient of numerous awards and artist residencies and recent solo and two-person shows include LAContemporary, Newspace Gallery, McNish Art Gallery, and the First Street Gallery and Art Center in Claremont. More information about Brucker’s work can be found on her website.	Jane Brucker Lost (detail) cast bronze and brass, dimensions vary: .5” – 6”
Ursula Kammer-Fox (Santa Monica, CA) earned bachelor’s degrees in Germany and Japan before emigrating to the United States where she earned a bachelor’s degree in French from California State University Northridge. Kammer-Fox creates collages and assemblages “because they allow [her] to explore the ambiguities of power, religion and sex, while recycling man-and nature-made leftovers, rediscovering and rearranging the familiar, [and] telling unfinished stories.” The assemblages on view in this exhibition are figural and come from two series, the Flatmates and the Oooks. Kammer-Fox’s manipulations of found objects give birth to emotive characters that suggest new narratives independent of their pieces and parts. Kammer-Fox has served as a board member for the Los Angeles Art Association/Gallery 825 and as chair of the Los Angeles Assemblage Group. She exhibits frequently in the Los Angeles area, most recently at LA Artcore, the Riverside Art Museum, Palos Verdes Art Center and El Camino College. More information about Kammer-Fox’s work can be found on her website.	Ursula Kammer-Fox I am #117 of the Oooks found objects
Leslie Sutcliffe (Los Osos, CA) holds a master’s degree in art from California State University Fullerton and currently teaches print media and art history at Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo. Sutcliffe’s mixed media paintings and drawings explore the relationship between words and images in print form and the new communication technologies upon which we are becoming increasingly reliant. Both mysterious and evocative, the imagery taken from obsolete print media strikes the viewer as vaguely familiar but in its new context cannot quite be placed. Forgotten texts are given new life as works of art. Sutcliffe has served as a board member for the Arts Council of San Luis Obispo County and is the publisher of El Moro Etching Editions Limited. She has exhibited her work recently in a one-person show at California State University Dominquez Hills Art Gallery and at Firefly Gallery, Paso Robles, Art Space Obispo, LA Artcore and La Sierra University, Riverside. More information about Sutcliffe’s work can be found on her website.	Leslie Sutcliffe Untitled (Galaxy 3) oil and graphite on panel 18 ¼” x 24 ½”

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