New in 2014: Contemporary Art Installations at Select Gardens
Inspired: LA Artists Respond to California Native Plant Gardens

For the first time in the history of the Garden Tour, contemporary art and native landscapes unite in a curated art exhibition. Eleven gardens on this tour feature the creations of LA-based contemporary artists, and many of the artists will be on-site to discuss their work. Art will also be for sale, with 15% of the proceeds benefitting the Theodore Payne Foundation.

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Ann Hadlock — Garden 17 in Redondo Beach

Los Angeles-based multimedia artist Ann Hadlock has to her credit a wide-ranging body of work that explores a tremendous array of environmental, aesthetic, socio-historical and ecological ideas. By seamlessly incorporating her accomplishments in music, videography, natural sciences and visual art she has consistently produced ‘art with a purpose’, that is at the same time approachable, stimulating and educational.
Hadlock’s recent research on butterflies and host plants has lead her to create pieces focused on California butterflies which will also take form as a documentary entitled Los Angeles : City Of Butterflies cityofbutterflies.tumblr.com

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Blue McRight — Garden 27 in Pasadena

“The style of my work is a reflection of an ongoing investigation into ways to create and disrupt connections between nature, personal experience, and politics. This investigation is framed in terms of my core idea; since the 1990’s, the theme of water – or a lack thereof – has informed my visual art practice across different media in a kind of meta-work that continues to evolve. More poetic than didactic, the connections I seek are mysterious, organic, and open-ended, exploring the terrain between the real and the surreal.” samuelfreeman.com/artists/blue-mcright/

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Christine Nguyen — Garden 13 in Del Rey

“My work draws upon the imagery of nature and the sciences, but it is not limited to technologies of the present. I’ve been drawn to 19th century Naturalists like Ernst Haeckel, a biologist, philosopher, physician and artist, and Anna Atkins, a botanist and photographer.” lephant.com

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Devon Tsuno — Garden 16 in Manhattan Beach

Los Angeles-native Devon Tsuno paints with spray paint and acrylic. His recent body of abstract paintings and prints on handmade papers focuses on the LA landscape’s bodies of water and non-native vegetation. Tsuno currently lives and works in Midcity, Los Angeles and in 2013 was an artist in residence at Kaus Australis in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.  Recent solo exhibitions include Roppongi 605 (Tokyo), and Occidental College (Los Angeles), in addition to group exhibitions at the Hammer Museum Venice Beach Biennial, Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Torrance Art Museum. devontsuno.com

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Fred Rose — Garden 7 in Brentwood

“My current work involves an interest in combining odd quirks and anomalies of organic natural wood as found in logs and trees with the hard geometry of man altered woodcraft. I am fascinated by the oddities of wood, the idea of wood, the folklore of wood, the history of wood things, the practicality and discipline of woodworking. fredrosestudio.com

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Jaqueline Suskin — Garden 1 in Beverly Hills

Jacqueline Suskin operates a performance/poetry piece informally referred to as Poem Store: a project that consists of exchanging on demand poetry about any subject, composed on a manual typewriter, in trade for any donation. yoursubjectyourprice.com

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Lauren Kasmer — Garden 10 in Santa Monica

Lauren Michele Kasmer (aka LMK) is a visual artist who incorporates varied media and multiple disciplines into an order of aesthetics. Transforming experience into a shared expression through installation, collaborative performance and audience participatory engagements are her trademarks. Remnants of her initial influences stemming from her studies with seminal photographer Robert Heinecken and being the daughter of a noted fashion designer influence her palette which includes conventional, experimental and alternative art practices. laurenkasmer.com

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Michael Lewis Miller — Garden 35 in Atwater Village

Project for Garden Tour: LANTERN ROOM INSTALLATION, 2014
Mixed media with interactions

“This room design is based on the third floor room of the Residence A at Barnsdall Park, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. I have altered the room design to include an attic. The space and installation is intended as a studio space where currently projects are conceived and executed. Current projects include watercolors of my garden and a color palette based on California native plants.” flic.kr/s/aHsjcXDKNa

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Nancy Kyes — Garden 2 in Mid-City

“I work with thousands of found objects—everything from pencil stubs to mass spectrometers—randomly mashing, layering, and weaving things together without using glue or paint. This process yields a kind of new material, which I use to make sculpture, gathering along the way everything internal and external, micro and macro, fiction and non-fiction; I am looking for the actual by making a picture of the possible.” nancykyes.com

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Pamela Burgess — Garden 29 in Pasadena

Pamela Burgess explores light and shadows as materials and metaphor in her sculptures, drawings and photographs. Her California landscape series of garden installations are site-related, and include digital prints of surrounding native flora on translucent acrylics and gossamer fabrics. The transitory nature of life is the underlying theme of her work. pamelaburgess.com

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Pat Warner — Garden 38 in Burbank

“My work is influenced by nature whether it be flora, fauna or the earth itself.  The work I have chosen to include in the Theodore Payne Foundation Garden Tour are rock-like forms that were inspired by the tilted strata of the Mormon Rocks near the San Andreas Fault near the Cajon Pass.” patwarnerprojects.com

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