Opening Reception: Saturday, March 9, 2019, 7-10Pm
Exhibition Dates: March 9 – April 6, 2019
Closing Reception: Saturday, April 6, 2019, 2-4PM

Currently open in our Red Floor Gallery is BOTTOM FEEDER; Views from the Arroyos, by artist, Richard Willson. Please join us for the closing reception on Saturday, April 6, 2019 from 2-4PM. As always, our receptions are FREE, we offer parking & are located walking distance from the Highland Park Metro Gold Line Station. Please join us for an afternoon of art & celebrate Richard Willson’s beautiful paintings with us!

Artist Insights:
“I grew up a stone’s throw from the Detroit River. It carries the waters of lakes Superior, Michigan, and Huron to the Atlantic Ocean. Wide and constant, it rivals the Mississippi. The Detroit River separates Canada and the U.S. and was a crossing point in the Underground Railway. Escaping slaves called it the Jordan, as they passed from Midnight (Detroit) to Dawn (Windsor).

When I moved to Los Angeles, its rivers were unrecognizable chunks of industrial infrastructure. These concrete channels are sized for winter storms and so devoid of flow most of the year. Once I learned of LA’s historic floods, I understood the modernist sentiment to wrestle these wild things into passivity. They were seen engineering problem to be solved, rather than a part of nature or a place. LA’s rivers anticipated its freeways – efficient flow above all.

Most people pass over the Los Angeles River and the Arroyo Seco in their cars. They have little interest from that vantage point. To understand them, you have to get into them. Ride or walk the bike path in the Arroyo Seco, venture further south to the confluence with the Los Angeles River. Head to the ocean if you wish. These paintings share what I’ve seen and felt as I’ve run and ridden in the Arroyos of Los Angeles.”

Richard Willson is urban planning professor and a painter. Painting is his assertion that “observation is environmentalism.” He is a professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at Cal Poly Pomona. Willson holds a Ph. D. from UCLA and studied art at the Otis College of Art and Design.

Artwork:

Installation Shots: