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North Hollywood Station: Caryl Davis | 'Dramatic Locale'

Caryl Davis is an L.A.-based artist, holds a BA and MFA from UCLA, and has taught life drawing at SCIArc for many years. Her work explores relationships between the body, environment and new materials. Entitled "Dramatic Locale," Davis' work at the North Hollywood Orange Line Station features text suggestive of geologic strata and portrays a dialogue between land and a changing population. The art panel at the station entrance lists the many place-names given to the region's landforms by its inhabitants. Orange Line passengers will literally walk into the San Fernando Valley over a rocky terrazzo image of the region-crossing vast ranges, valleys and fault zones extending from coast to desert, as seen from space.                                              Top

Laurel Canyon Station:  Phung Huynh | 'Lucky California' 

Chinese/Cambodian painter Phung Huynh was born in Vietnam and now lives and works in L.A. after completing her BFA at the Art Center College of Design and MFA at New York University. Her work draws from allegories and fables as well as from traditional and contemporary American imagery. Working in a pop culture sensibility, Huynh's artwork for Laurel Canyon Station, which she has entitled "Lucky California," displays "lucky" Chinese cherubs with California poppies, and Chinese cherub pilots in a surreal yet travel-friendly atmosphere of airplanes, birds and flying oranges. The designs suggest travel, a "bon voyage" gesture, and imagery symbolic of California. They are lucky symbols and happy gestures that welcome or bid farewell to travelers in the area.                   Top

Valley College Station: Laura London | 'Former Location/Contemporary Portrait'

Laura London is an LA based artist raised in Chicago, Illinois. She received her MFA from California Institute of the Arts and teaches photography at Otis College of Art and Design. Her photographic work integrates contemporary youth and popular culture within the environment. For Valley College Station, London's black and white contemporary portraits shot in historic locations of rock 'n' roll history reference the styles and fashions of the times and is entitled "Former Location/Contemporary Portrait." Recreated scenes of the San Fernando Valley include the 1969 Rolling Stones album cover "Big Hits (High Tides and Green Grass)," shot in Franklin Canyon, and Devonshire Downs (racetrack), where the Newport '69 Festival headlined Jimi Hendrix, The Animals, Marvin Gaye and others. It was also formerly the original Valley College location (now Cal State University Northridge).       Top

Woodman Station: Daniel Marlos | 'Journey to California'

Daniel Marlos, an L.A.-based artist, grew up in Youngstown, Ohio, received his MFA from Art Center College of Design and teaches at LA City College. He is an installation artist, whose primary media has been photography and film. He has recently expanded his media to include the handmade quilt. For the Woodman Station, Daniel Marlos selected "Journey to California," a quilt pattern that references both California and travel. The pattern is also the title to the work. After first creating a quilt in this pattern he then photographed it and incorporated the photographic image into the entry panel at the station; the pattern is also incorporated into the terrazzo paving. Many quilt designs have descriptive names that are associated with transportation.                                                  Top

Van Nuys Station:  Roxene Rockwell  | 'Van Nuys, The New Town'

L.A. based artist Roxene Rockwell attended L.A. Valley College, and has an MA from Antioch University Southern California. Her collages and assemblages have a surreal quality and primarily deal with re-examining ordinarily things and placing them in unexpected surroundings. For the Van Nuys Station Rockwell depicts wheat and sugar beet fields, reminders of what was here before Van Nuys was subdivided in 1911. The chicken represents the chicken farms that existed in north Van Nuys and the floating musical notes draw attention to the fact that organs were produced for the silent movie theaters within walking distance of this station. Twinkling lights seen from the hill above represent the Van Nuys that we know today. She has titled the work "Van Nuys, The New Town."     Top

Sepulveda Station: Michele Martínez | 'Todos vuelven/Everyone Returns'

Michele Martínez has an MA in Latin American Studies from UCLA. She has taught language, art and cultural studies at various schools throughout Southern California. For her work she collects stories and invokes imagination to render works in paper, fabric and paint. For Sepulveda Station, Martínez included a map of the Monarch Butterfly's western migratory path along the West Coast and a Monarch larvae on a double spiral which references the genetic encoding that spurs every third generation of butterflies to complete a migration from Canada to central Mexico. Entitled "Todos vuelven/Everyone Returns," this work is a tribute to the Sepulveda Wildlife Reserve and the efforts of the people who strive to protect natural habitats.                                                       Top

Woodley Station: John Roloff | 'Valley Scan' 

John Roloff, an internationally recognized Bay area visual artist with a background in science, works conceptually with site, process and natural systems. He is Professor and Chair of Sculpture at the Center for Art and Science at the San Francisco Art Institute. Roloff's artwork at Woodley Station, entitled "Valley Scan," references the geological make up of the Van Nuys, Sepulveda and San Fernando Valley area as well as paying homage to the geologists who study the Valley. A gradient of light creates the illusion of a "cavity" with mud cracks indicating water from ancient aquifers, while "boulders" reveal remnants of an imaginary, ancient event dispersing the rocks now held in place by subsequent deposition. West oriented shadows represent a moment in time, in the late afternoon of one day, perhaps hundreds of thousands of years ago buried by geologic processes now revealed by the cavities "excavation." The illusion of depth is an invitation to look beneath the Valley's surface both literally and imaginatively.                         Top

Balboa Station: John O'Brien | 'OverSite' 

John O'Brien, who recently completed works at two L.A. libraries, has a MFA from USC and teaches sculpture at California State University Northridge. He has years of experience as an artist, educator and fabricator with a special focus on the traditions of assemblage art and large sculpture. Entitled "OverSite," O'Brien's work for Balboa Station incorporates images taken from high altitude aerial photos and from landsat satellite sources. A person in transit can either enjoy the artwork from the purely decorative point of view or delve into its mapping and discover that it actually maps the area they are transiting through.     Top

Reseda Station: Jody Zellen  | 'Now and Then' 

A photo-based artist Jody Zellen, lives in L.A. and works in many media simultaneously making photographs, installations, net art, public art, as well as artists' books that explore the subject of the urban environment. She holds an MFA from California Institute of the Arts and teaches at Cal Poly Pomona. Zellen's work for the Reseda Station, entitled "Now and Then," incorporate images from the San Fernando Valley that trace its architectural history and its relationship to the city of Los Angeles. Text based work includes a verse from the San Fernando Valley song by Gordon Jenkins and a quote by Catherine Mulholland.                                                                                     Top

Tampa Station: Sandow Birk | 'Tarzan and Tarzana'

Raised on the beaches of Southern California, Sandow Birk is currently living and working in Long Beach and holds a BFA from Otis College of Art and Design. His work, which often uses historical genres with a satirical contemporary twist, focuses on social and political issues including Los Angeles' inner city barrios, the 1992 civil disturbances, O.J. Simpson, the LAPD, gangs, surfing, and skateboarding; he also completed several works documenting a fictional war between LA and San Francisco. Birk's work for the Tampa Station relate to the town of Tarzana as named after Edgar Rice Burroughs' most famous creation and hero of more than twenty of his novels, Tarzan of the Apes. Sandow Birk selected the zebra skin and the giraffe skin as patterns, readily recognizable and identifiable with Africa, and reproduced the entire 28 chapter, 172 page text of the book "Tarzan of the Apes." The text has been printed in two portions, one for each platform, so that over the course of repeated visits passengers can read the book in its entirety. He has entitled the work "Tarzan and Tarzana."   Top

Pierce College Station: Pat Warner | 'What We See'

Pat Warner was raised in a Mennonite community in Lancaster County, Penn., and attended the Museum School of Art, Museum of Fine Art in Houston, Texas. Using materials as varied as wood, steel, and concrete, Warner's installations express concerns about our environment. Entitled "What We See," Warner's designs for Pierce College Station reflect the college's emphasis on agricultural programs. The imagery make references to nature and horticulture: leaves and tree limbs refer to the natural landscape and the lattice design of overlapping branches refer to espaliering, a traditional method of pruning and training fruit trees. The art panels feature images of birds that have been sited on the campus. Red tailed hawk, mockingbird, and Canada goose are common species that most users of the station will recognize. Western tanagers, western bluebirds and some species of warblers are less common but will be recognized by more observant travelers.             Top

De Soto Station: John Divola | "Images from 'Dogs Chasing My Car in the Desert'"

A past Canoga area resident, L.A.-based John Divola holds a MFA from UCLA and is a Professor at UC Riverside. He works primarily with photography and digital imaging and has approached a broad range of subjects. Divola's design elements for the De Soto Station involve images of dogs chasing cars. The terrazzo ellipses are dog run sequences and the enamel panels are individual dogs frozen in motion. He has entitled the work 'Images from 'Dogs Chasing My Car in the Desert.'"       Top