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Gateway Transit Center

Cesar Chavez/Vignes Street Gateway
Paseo Cesar Chavez, 1996
Roberto Gil de Montes, Elsa Flores and Peter Shire, artist team

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This artist team worked with project architects to form seating areas, planter walls and fountains which together form an inviting corner park. Surfaces are covered in colorful ceramic tile, most of it hand painted and/or sculptural. While the artists worked together on the trio of fountains as a concept and in the common use of ceramic tile as a material, each fountain also reflects the individual artist's styles.

"We thought of the fountain as a metaphor for life."

ROBERT GIL DE MONTES, ELSA FLORES, and PETER SHIRE, who have distinguished careers in their own right, came together for the first time on this project. Born in Guadalajara, Mexico, Gil de Montes moved to Los Angeles as a teenager and obtained a Master of Fine Arts from the Otis Art Institute. His other public works include a tile relief mural at the Hope Street entrance to the Metro Rail 7th Street/Metro Center Station. Flores was born in Las Vegas, educated at Art Center College of Design and Cal State LA, and has exhibited extensively throughout the region. LA native Shire was educated at Chouinard Art Institute and was a member of the internationally renowned Memphis Group during the 1980s. He has lived and worked in Echo Park near downtown Los Angeles for many years.