Shana Mabari

Last updated

Shana Mabari (born April 4, 1969) is an American contemporary artist who lives and works in Los Angeles. Central to her artistic practice is a focus on the intersection of art, science, and technology as articulated in her sculptures, installations, and immersive environments. Working in industrially fabricated acrylic, steel, and reflective materials, Mabari engages with color, light, reflection, geometric form, and scale in a manner that connects to the Light and Space art movement that originated in Southern California in the 1960s. [1] Artist residencies with NASA in 2018 and the international nonprofit organization Sea Shepherd Global in 2020 further expanded Mabari's practice.

Contents

For her sculpture and installations, Mabari designs on computer and builds scale models. From 2013 to 2023, she collaborated with Jack Brogan, [2] the renowned Southern California–based fabricator who produced works by Light and Space artists such as Peter Alexander, Larry Bell, and Robert Irwin. [3]

Background

Mabari was born in Los Angeles to an American mother and an Israeli father. She grew up in the Fairfax District.

From 1989 to 1991, Mabari studied fine art at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris, École Parsons à Paris, and the American University of Paris. In 1998, she graduated with a B.F.A. from Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles. She has also lived and worked in Northern India, Southeast Asia, Tel Aviv, and Ibiza, Spain. [4]

Art and science collaborations

Neuromorphic Engineering Workshop

In 2003, Mabari collaborated with neuromorphic engineer Tobias Delbruck and robotics physicist Mark Tilden on the Biomorphic Pendulum, a prototype for a larger immersive experience at the Neuromorphic Engineering Workshop in Telluride, Colorado. [5]

California Institute of Technology

In 2004, Mabari and Caltech professor of experimental psychology Dr. Shinsuke Shimojo [6] were awarded a patent for the design of Dynamic Spatial Illusions, a portable version of a visual-and-sensory experimental environment.

Major projects

ILLUMETRIC triptych [7]

In 2014, Mabari was awarded an Artists' Resource for Completion (ARC) grant by the Center for Cultural Innovation [8] to fund ILLUMETRIC, a trio of monumental cast-acrylic sculptures on steel bases. The work was installed along the landscaped median of Santa Monica Blvd. as part of the Art on the Outside public art program sponsored by the City of West Hollywood's Arts and Cultural Affairs Commission and was on display from June 2014 through July 2016. [9] Each of three pieces measures more than ten feet tall and is cast in acrylic in highly saturated primary colors as a geometric form–a diamond, a cube, and a rectangle. LED lights powered by photovoltaic cells illuminated the sculptures from within so that each piece reached a glowing luminescence upon sunset.

Astral Challenger [10]

In 2016, Mabari's site-specific sculpture Astral Challenger was put on permanent display by the City of Lancaster, California, [2] on the roundabout at the intersection of Challenger Way and Avenue L. The 20-foot-tall stainless-steel-and-acrylic structure was the first piece to be commissioned by the city's Arts and Public Places program, [11] with 75% of the funding provided through a California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) grant. Conceived as both a tribute to the city's achievements in the aerospace industry and to honor the astronauts lost in the 1986 space shuttle Challenger disaster, its minimalist form evokes the silhouette of a rocket while maintaining an illusion of near weightlessness. At night, the sculpture is illuminated by LED lights encased within in the 19-foot diameter concrete pad upon which it sits.

Artist residencies

NASA

In 2018, Mabari was selected to be the first artist to fly aboard a mission of NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), [12] which uses a 2.7-meter telescope mounted in a customized 747 flying to a maximum altitude of 45,000 feet to study such astronomical phenomena as black holes and star formation. The residency inspired a diverse body of work that includes the Meteor series of lustrous gemlike acrylic sculptures, each approximately 5 inches in dimension, and three series of prints on metallic paper, Planeta, Constellatio, and Stella.

Sea Shepherd Global

Mabari was the first artist-in-residence aboard a mission of Sea Shepard Global, the non-profit, direct-action ocean conservation organization. [13] The five-day seaborn residency in 2020 involved a clandestine effort to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing in the Gulf of Guinea off the coast of Benin in West Africa and resulted in the arrest of a trawler for violating protected waters near an ecological reserve. The residency inspired two separate series in Mabari's Oceans body of work. The first, Korāl, includes 60 freestanding acrylic cylinder sculptures ranging in height from 7 to 14 inches each that together evoke the beauty and ephemerality of coral reefs. The second, Horizōns, consists of eight wall-mounted 15-inch disks in clear acrylic bisected by a luminous blue line suggesting the meeting of sea and sky.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lancaster, California</span> City in California, United States

Lancaster is a charter city in northern Los Angeles County, in the Antelope Valley of the western Mojave Desert in Southern California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 173,516, making Lancaster the 153rd largest city in the United States and the 30th largest in California. Lancaster is a twin city with its southern neighbor Palmdale; together, they are the principal cities within the Antelope Valley region.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Palmdale, California</span> City in California, United States

Palmdale is a city in northern Los Angeles County in the U.S. state of California. The city lies in the Antelope Valley of Southern California. The San Gabriel Mountains separate Palmdale from the Los Angeles Basin to the south.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Irwin (artist)</span> American installation artist (1928–2023)

Robert Walter Irwin was an American installation artist who explored perception and the conditional in art, often through site-specific, architectural interventions that alter the physical, sensory and temporal experience of space.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Third Street Promenade</span> Pedestrian mall shopping complex

The Third Street Promenade is a pedestrian mall esplanade, shopping, dining and entertainment complex in the downtown area of Santa Monica, California which originally opened as the Santa Monica Mall on November 8, 1965. It is considered a premier shopping and dining district on the Westside and draws crowds from all over the Greater Los Angeles area. Due to easy access to Downtown Los Angeles via the Big Blue Bus rapid transit service, E Line's terminus station and the Pacific Coast Highway-Santa Monica Freeway Interstate, the neighborhood's north-south thoroughfares connecting to Muscle Beach, Venice Canal Historic District, Marina del Rey, Ballona Wetlands and Los Angeles International Airport, and its proximity to historic U.S. Route 66, Santa Monica Pier, Palisades Park, Tongva Park, Santa Monica State Beach and the Pacific Ocean coupled with Los Angeles's mild mediterranean climate, it is also a popular tourist destination.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Millard Sheets</span> American artist, teacher, and architectural designer.(1907–1989)

Millard Owen Sheets was an American artist, teacher, and architectural designer. He was one of the earliest of the California Scene Painting artists and helped define the art movement. Many of his large-scale building-mounted mosaics from the mid-20th century are still extant in Southern California. His paintings are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum in New York, the Chicago Art Institute, the National Gallery in Washington D.C.; and the Los Angeles County Museum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kenneth Price</span> American artist (1935–2021)

Kenneth Price was an American artist who predominantly created ceramic sculpture. He studied at the Chouinard Art Institute and Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles, before receiving his BFA degree from the University of Southern California in 1956. He continued his studies at Chouinard Art Institute in 1957 and received an MFA degree from New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University in 1959. Kenneth Price studied ceramics with Peter Voulkos at Otis and was awarded a Tamarind Fellowship.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Standish (artist)</span> American artist

Robert Standish is an American artist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anthony James (artist)</span>

Anthony James is a British/American artist, based in Los Angeles, known for his monumental and experiential sculptures and installations. His work gestures towards the theatricality of minimalism and formalism. Throughout his work, there is a focus on materiality, alchemy, and a deep respect for light and space.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Light and Space</span> Art movement

Light and Space denotes a loosely affiliated art movement related to op art, minimalism and geometric abstraction originating in Southern California in the 1960s and influenced by John McLaughlin. It is characterized by a focus on perceptual phenomena, such as light, volume and scale, and the use of materials such as glass, neon, fluorescent lights, resin and cast acrylic, often forming installations conditioned by the work's surroundings. Whether by directing the flow of natural light, embedding artificial light within objects or architecture, or by playing with light through the use of transparent, translucent or reflective materials, Light and Space artists make the spectator's experience of light and other sensory phenomena under specific conditions the focus of their work. From the movement's inception, artists were incorporating into their work the latest technologies of the Southern California-based engineering and aerospace industries to develop sensuous, light-filled objects. Turrell, who has spread the movement worldwide, summed up its philosophy in saying, "We eat light, drink it in through our skins."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alexandra Grant</span> American visual artist (born 1973)

Alexandra Grant is an American visual artist who examines language and written texts through painting, drawing, sculpture, video, and other media. She uses language and exchanges with writers as a source for much of that work. Grant examines the process of writing and ideas based in linguistic theory as it connects to art and creates visual images inspired by text and collaborative group installations based on that process. She is based in Los Angeles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Alexander (artist)</span> American artist (1939–2020)

Peter Alexander was an American artist who was part of the Light and Space artistic movement in southern California in the 1960s. He is notable for his resin sculptures from the 1960s and 1970s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stephen Nowlin</span> American curator/artist

Stephen Nowlin is an American curator/artist whose practice superimposes art and science and is associated with the national ArtScience movement. He is a vice president at Art Center College of Design and founding director of the college's Alyce de Roulet Williamson Gallery.

Helen Pashgian is an American visual artist who lives and works in Pasadena, California. She is a primary member of the Light and Space art movement of the 1960s, but her role has been historically under-recognized.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pietro Perona</span> American computer scientist

Pietro Perona is an Italian-American educator and computer scientist. He is the Allan E. Puckett Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computation and Neural Systems at the California Institute of Technology and director of the National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center in Neuromorphic Systems Engineering. He is known for his research in computer vision and is the director of the Caltech Computational Vision Group.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jennie C. Jones</span> American artist

Jennie C. Jones is an African-American artist living and working in Brooklyn, New York. Her work has been described, by Ken Johnson, as evoking minimalism, and paying tribute to the cross-pollination of different genres of music, especially jazz. As an artist, she connects most of her work between art and sound. Such connections are made with multiple mediums, from paintings to sculptures and paper to audio collages. In 2012, Jones was the recipient of the Joyce Alexander Wien Prize, one of the biggest awards given to an individual artist in the United States. The prize honors one African-American artist who has proven their commitment to innovation and creativity, with an award of 50,000 dollars. In December 2015 a 10-year survey of Jones's work, titled Compilation, opened at the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston, Texas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mikael Brandrup</span>

Mikael Brandrup, also known as Mikael B or "KETS", is a Danish visual artist, graphic designer, and entrepreneur who lives in Los Angeles. Mikael B has exhibited at galleries in Europe and the United States such as Taglialatella Galleries, Gregorio Escalante Gallery, Corey Helford Gallery, CASS Contemporary, WYN317 and Gabba Gallery. He works in both the fine art world and in the urban contemporary genres.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nancy Baker Cahill</span> American multidisciplinary artist

Nancy Baker Cahill is an American new media artist based in Los Angeles, California. She has created immersive augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) experiences, video installations and blockchain projects, oftentimes rooted in drawing. Her work frequently merges technology and public art, drawing upon both feminist land art and the history of political interventions to examine systemic power, body autonomy, civics and climate crisis, among other issues.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MAK Center for Art and Architecture</span> Art museum in West Hollywood, California

The MAK Center for Art and Architecture is an art museum and cultural center headquartered in the Schindler House in West Hollywood, California, United States. It is affiliated with the Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna (MAK). The Center is situated in three architectural landmarks, designed by Austrian-American architect R.M. Schindler. The center operates a residency program and exhibition space at the Mackey Apartments and runs residencies and a study center at the Fitzpatrick-Leland House.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joe Ray (artist)</span> American artist

Joe Ray is an American artist based in Los Angeles. His work has moved between abstraction and representation and mediums including painting, sculpture, performance art and photography. He began his career in the early 1960s and belonged to several notable art communities in Los Angeles, including the Light and Space movement; early cast-resin sculptors, including Larry Bell; and the influential 1970s African-American collective, Studio Z, of which he was a founding member with artists such as David Hammons, Senga Nengudi and Houston Conwill. Critic Catherine Wagley described Ray as "an artist far more committed to understanding all kinds of light and space than to any specific material or strategy"—a tendency that she and others have suggested led to his being under-recognized.

Jack Brogan was an American art fabricator. He helped produce works by numerous artists including Peter Alexander, Larry Bell, Robert Irwin, Helen Pashgian and Shana Mabari.

References

  1. ↑ "Illumetric: Public Art Shapes Santa Monica Blvd With Light". Cartwheel Art. 2014-09-16. Retrieved 2023-11-29.
  2. 1 2 Levine, Jay (August 2016). "Astral Challenger - Artwork salutes Challenger and Antelope Valley aerospace" (PDF). NASA The Armstrong X-Press. pp. 4–6.
  3. ↑ Green, Penelope (October 13, 2022). "Jack Brogan, Who Gave Substance to Artists' Visions, Is Dead at 92". The New York Times.
  4. ↑ Stories, Local (2019-02-18). "Check out Shana Mabari's Artwork - Voyage LA Magazine | LA City Guide". voyagela.com. Retrieved 2023-11-29.
  5. ↑ Cohen, Avis (August 2003). "Report on the 2003 WORKSHOP ON NEUROMORPHIC ENGINEERING". Academia. 1 (1): 100, 107, 141, 142 – via https://www.academia.edu.{{cite journal}}: External link in |via= (help)
  6. ↑ "Shinsuke (Shin) Shimojo | Chen Institute". neuroscience.caltech.edu. Retrieved 2023-12-04.
  7. ↑ "Illumetric in West Hollywood, CA". Public Art Archive. Retrieved 2023-12-01.
  8. ↑ ":: CCI :: ARC Grants ::". www.cciarts.org. Retrieved 2023-12-01.
  9. ↑ "'Illumetric' brightens Santa Monica Blvd. in West Hollywood". Los Angeles Times. 2014-08-25. Retrieved 2023-12-01.
  10. ↑ "New Monument Commemorates Challenger Disaster". spectrumnews1.com. Retrieved 2023-12-01.
  11. ↑ "Astral Challenger Roundabout". Destination Lancaster. Retrieved 2023-12-01.
  12. ↑ Writer, ALLISON GATLIN Valley Press Staff (2019-01-02). "Telescope bringing science to life". Antelope Valley Press. Retrieved 2023-12-04.
  13. ↑ Davis, Genie (April 16, 2022). "Oceans Has High Tide Appeal – Shana Mabari at Porch Gallery in Ojai". Diversions LA.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.