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Entries in Sculptures (88)

Great White Shark with Seal

Parisian native Artist Victor Douieb (center) with Aquarium Director Vicki Wawerchak (right) and internationally-recognized diving legend Cristina Zenato (left) discuss his bronze with patina sculpture entitled, "Great White Shark with Seal" (2010, L:34.5" W: 22" H:22) during the Benefit Exhibition at Heal the Bay’s Santa Monica Pier Aquarium on Saturday, May 7, 2011.
 
On display were 10 sculptures including two of Victor's newest additions, Blue Shark and Mako. All door proceeds from the event  benefits Heal the Bay, a non-profit environmental group working to restore Santa Monica Bay.
 
"I'm very pleased that my first exhibit here will also be helping the environment by partnering with both the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium and Heal the Bay," says Douieb, whose catalog of work includes both sea creatures - primarily sharks - as well as other wildlife. "As someone who loves the ocean, and especially as Los Angeles is my adopted city, I feel strongly about doing my part in helping to protect and save the local coastal waters."
 
Douieb has been passionate about sharks since his first deep sea dive when he was 18 years old.
 
Captivated by their power, grace and beauty, Victor began sculpting sharks as a means of expressing his appreciation of this perfectly evolved creature's pure simplicity, but also to help bring attention to the impact that over fishing and the needless slaughter by the shark fin industry is posing to shark populations worldwide.
 
"Before sculpting my first shark," Victor explains, "I had been a dental ceramist and technician giving me the knowledge and experience which later made sculpting very natural for me. One day while at work, I suddenly got the urge to sculpt a little shark out of silver, not realizing that 20 years later, sculpting would become my profession."
 
Prior to beginning a new piece, Victor immerses himself in understanding the subject in terms of its general nature, habitat, and the anatomy and dynamic movements of the body. Typically he will attempt to get as close as possible - whether diving with sharks around the world or journeying to Africa for a wildlife safari - to photograph and experience the animal in its native environment.
 
Continually adding to his portfolio, which currently consists of 21 works that originate in clay and are then cast in bronze with beautiful and exotic patinas or in gleaming stainless steel, a finish that sets his art apart from most of his contemporaries, Victor is an ardent supporter of numerous conservation organizations donating a percentage of proceeds from the sale of his artwork.

 

Posted on Sunday, May 8, 2011 at 12:01AM by Registered CommenterFabian Lewkowicz in , , | CommentsPost a Comment | EmailEmail | PrintPrint

CRADLE

"Cradle," a permanent artwork measuring 39 ft. wide and 36 ft. high by Ball Nogues Studio, was installed on the east wall of the city's Parking Structure 7 on 4th Street between Broadway and Colorado on Tuesday, July 27, 2010.

An aggregation of mirror polished stainless steel spheres, the sculpture operates structurally like an enormous Newton’s Cradle - the ubiquitous toy found on the desktops of corporate executives. Each ball is suspended by a cable from a point on the wall and locked in position by a combination of gravity and neighboring balls. As a whole, the balls imply an articulated surface suggestive of foam or sea life.

Posted on Tuesday, August 10, 2010 at 04:00PM by Registered CommenterFabian Lewkowicz in , , | CommentsPost a Comment | EmailEmail | PrintPrint

Santa Monica Airport ArtWalk 

Santa Monica College ceramic sculpting professor, Franklyn Phillips, (left) and his student Tom Swanson work on a collaborative clay sculpture during the fourth annual Santa Monica Airport ArtWalk on Saturday, March 20, 2010. More than 60 local artists and performers had their private studios and works on view at the fourth annual Santa Monica Airport ArtWalk, including Santa Monica Art Studios, Santa Monica College Art Mentor Program and Ceramic Arts and the Ruskin Group Theatre. The airport arts community is a unique, cultural resource located in one of L.A. County’s oldest operating airfields. Painting, sculpture, ceramics, and mixed media were represented. Galleries participating in the program’s converted airplane hangars are ARENA 1 and the Sherry Frumkin Gallery. Throughout the day there was firing demonstrations of Raku Japanese pottery, highlights from the Ruskin Group Theatre’s popular monthly offering L.A. Café Plays, theater and art workshops for kids. The Santa Monica Airport Art Walk was presented by Santa Monica Cultural Affairs Division, Santa Monica Airport and Santa Monica College.

Posted on Saturday, March 20, 2010 at 03:50PM by Registered CommenterFabian Lewkowicz in , | CommentsPost a Comment | EmailEmail | PrintPrint

GWYNN MURRILL: EARLY WOOD SCULPTURE

Artist Gwynn Murrill leads a gallery walkthrough at Santa Monica College's Pete & Susan Barrett Art Gallery on Saturday, September 26, 2009.
 
Gwynn Murrill began her exploration of form through sculpture in 1967 as a student at UCLA. Her first endeavor centered on carving a rocking horse from laminated blocks of two-by-fours she cajoled from workers at construction sites around Los Angeles. As she refined her technique, Murrill abandoned construction lumber and began carving life size cougars, coyotes, hawks, and other animals from laminated planks of Hawaiian Koa wood. In the mid 1980s, after receiving several prominent grants, she began casting her earlier forms in bronze. That first rocking horse fueled what became a remarkable sculpture career, punctuated by numerous public commissions, both here in Los Angeles and internationally.
 
Murrill states, “My interest lies in the fact that I use the subject as a means to create a form that is abstract and figurative at the same time. It is a challenge to try and take the form that nature makes so well and to derive my own interpretation of it.”
 
Highlighting works from the artist’s own collection, this exhibition will give the public a rare glimpse into the artist’s formative years during the 1970s and 80s, and her fascination with the animal forms, for which she is so well known.

 

Posted on Monday, September 28, 2009 at 09:55AM by Registered CommenterFabian Lewkowicz in , , | CommentsPost a Comment | EmailEmail | PrintPrint

WATCHDOG

Santa Monica Callege student Sean Manross, 17, art-sits the  "Gwynn Murrill: Early Wood Sculpture,"  exhibit at  S.M.C.'s Pete & Susan Barrett Art Gallery on Thursday, September 3, 2009. The exhibit will be at the gallery through Oct. 24, with the opening reception from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 12. A number of the sculptures assembled for the exhibit were made in the early 1970s, as Murrill was finishing her bachelor's and MFA degrees at UCLA. Although a painting major, Murrill took a sculpture class and was so intrigued by the use of laminated wood blocks in making a rocking horse that she continued in sculpture.

Eventually, she received her MFA in painting, but graduated with a refined body of sculpture large enough to have an exhibition at Rico Mizuno Gallery in Los Angeles in 1972. That launched the Los Angeles artist into a career as a sculptor, with a particular interest in the animal form, created with a unique balance between abstraction and representation.

"My second rocking horse from 1971 will be in this SMC show, and I will also be showing several pieces that were completed for my second solo exhibition, which was at Nick Wilder Gallery (in Los Angeles) in 1977," Murrill said. Also included in the exhibit will be pieces from the mid1980s when she was working with Koa wood while in Hawaii.

The work that will be in the SMC show comes from her own collection, while several pieces are on loan from private collectors, LA Louver Gallery in Venice, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Murrill said that working with wood blocks made it possible for her "to make radical changes in the sculpture" to tackle "sculptural problems I set up for myself."

"My interest in figurative sculpture is more about life and movement of the form as it is held by the surrounding space, rather than it is about the specific details of a certain individual," she said. "Though I use photographs while working, I try to stay away from portraiture and pay more attention to the abstract qualities of the form of the animal."

Murrill has had a prolific career in art, sculpting not only in wood, but also in marble, bronze, stone and ceramic.

Over her career, Murrill has received many accolades: the Guggenheim Fellowship, a Prix di Roma Fellowship from the American Academy in Rome, National Endowment Grant, and a purchase award from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. In June, her latest public commission, for The Montana in Pasadena, received this year's Public Art Network Year in Review Award.

Murrill's work is held by many private collections and can been seen in number of public commissions throughout the U.S. and across the globe. The American Embassy in Singapore displays one of her Eagles, as does the Target Corp. Headquarters in Minneapolis. The City of Obihiro, Japan installed seven of Murrill's Deer along its main thoroughfares in 2003, and Los Angeles' Grand Hope Park is home to a collection of three coyotes, a hawk, and one snake.

For information, call (310) 434-3434.
Posted on Saturday, September 5, 2009 at 12:03AM by Registered CommenterFabian Lewkowicz in , , | CommentsPost a Comment | EmailEmail | PrintPrint

Annenberg Beach House

 

Greg Lebon (left) and Kent Trollen from Sand Sculptures International build a sand castle at the Annenberg Community Beach House  on Friday, April 24, 2009.

Posted on Saturday, April 25, 2009 at 12:00PM by Registered CommenterFabian Lewkowicz in , , , , | CommentsPost a Comment | EmailEmail | PrintPrint

The Thank You Tree

(top) Artist Anthony Schmitt, 51, builds his 12th Annual 'Edgemar Holiday Tree' on Wednesday, November 19, 2008. This years art sculpture/instalation is titled, "The Thank You Tree." It is 36 feet tall, (three feet higher than last years holiday tree) and is constructed from 86 shopping carts (three more than last year). No scaffolding was needed to erect the sculpture, it served as its own scaffolding. Schmitt uses shopping carts because they are a symbol both of adundance and of those less fortunate. (above) Assistant, Eron Nelson, 34, hands Schmitt a shopping cart.

Posted on Thursday, November 20, 2008 at 12:04AM by Registered CommenterFabian Lewkowicz in , , , | CommentsPost a Comment | EmailEmail | PrintPrint

Garden of Glass

(top) Santa Monica College Glass Blowing professors Don Hartman and Terri Bromberg present a glass sculpture to the family of Edgar Sinada during a dedication ceremony for the "Garden of Glass"on Friday, Nov. 14, 2008, at the SMC Library. (center) SMC President Chui L. Tsang welcomes guest during the dedication ceremony and sculpture installation. (above) Guest admire the sculpture installation during athe dedication ceremony.     'Garden of Glass' is a  student-and-faculty group project created in memory of glass student Edgar Sinada, who died in 2007 of stomach cancer at the age of 29. The installation was created by 30 students in the glass class of 2007, two teaching assistants and art professor Don Hartman. The design, planning, creation and installation of the piece took nearly a year. The installation consists of 15 columns made up of 175 individual blown-glass pieces, each created by different students. Two of the columns are more than 10 feet high."Edgar Sinada was very well liked, and we all decided we wanted to honor his memory with a special piece of art," Hartman said. "This soon grew into a major installation as more and more people became involved. The pieces are of blues, greens and purples, which were Edgar's favorite colors."

Posted on Saturday, November 15, 2008 at 12:56AM by Registered CommenterFabian Lewkowicz in , , | Comments2 Comments | EmailEmail | PrintPrint
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