Unearthed
Saturday, May 5th, 2007
paintings by Sandy Rodriguez
April 24 to August 3, 2007
Artist Talk
May 18 at noon
President’s Conference Room, C-233 Pasadena City College 1570 E. Colorado Blvd Pasadena, CA 91106
http://www.pasadena.edu/library/ http://www.pasadena.edu/calendar/eventitem.cfm?ID=7319
Unearthed, an exhibition in the Latino / Chicano Heritage Reading Room features a selection of landscape paintings by Sandy Rodriguez. Her exploration of Los Angeles began as a historical inquiry with the regional parks Lincoln Park, MacArthur Park, and Echo Park. Some of these locations entertained families with alligator zoos and street-car racing, and continue to invite Angelenos to leisurely enjoy the lush greenery at each site. Both Ostrich and Alligator, completed in 2001, exemplify Rodriguez’s initial explorations, capturing the essence of the landscape tradition prevalent in 18th and 19th century America. Rodriguez’s acute attention to place, light, and time evoke moments in Los Angeles that are now part of memories of yesteryear, and documents new truths about the changing landscapes. In Sunset on LaVeta she captures the streetscape in gentrified neighborhoods. In this case the beauty shop seen here now doesn’t exist in Echo Park. Similarly her light studies of the Mar Vista neighborhood and other beach communities document the elusiveness of beautiful and vibrant sunsets and nocturnes. The irony of the beauty painted in these skyscapes is that a toxic smog-filled L.A. basin is what inspires the rich layered tonalities seen in the subtle blues and violets, pungent oranges and vibrant reds. Throughout the serene landscapes there is an undertone of surveillance and imprisonment. The telephone lines, iron framed windows, and police department helicopters that hover watching over the city all speak to a heightened period of national security. Though we cannot hear the strumming of the helicopter blades, it is a sound familiar to many and inextricably part of the L.A. landscape. Overall, the paintings seen in Unearthed speak to the impermanence of the region’s landscape. - Reina Alejandra Prado, Curator ///