John O'Brien to lead art walk June 16 in Pasadena

Sunday, June 16, 2013
3pm 
 
Join artist John O’Brien for a walkthrough of his exhibition, Meander. Afterwards, gain insight into O’Brien’s process during a short “meander” led by the artist to nearby sites in Pasadena that feature public artworks and other unnoticed but notable urban features.

Free with admission

Pasadena Museum of California Art
490 East Union Street
Pasadena, CA. 91101
 www.pmcaonline.org



The title of Los Angeles-based artist John O'Brien's exhibition references a literal meandering up and around the Arroyo Seco Parkway, which the artist recounts through this installation, as well as the process of "meandering" at the core of O'Brien's practice. Juxtaposing large-scale cartographic images of the Arroyo Seco Parkway inset with smaller images of underpasses, O'Brien explores the tension between functionality and reverie that underscore the meandering. Using rational marking systems as point of departure–from writing to the constructed environment–he charts how those systems overlay the natural landscape, activate the imagination and memory, ultimately informing our understanding of the separate parts as a whole. The images are coupled with a freestanding sculpture in which the linear forms of the freeway and the curves of the offramps are registered as quasi letter forms. All of this is fused together into a loosely knit composite visual artwork in the PMCA Project Room. The resulting visual impact is determined by the artist's intent to re-create his own awakening to the wonder of this particular "meander," a moment in which things largely un-noticed or ignored suddenly come into view.