Artist Spotlight: Katie Crown - Waterworks

Katie Crown, Impending Zoom, Watercolor and gouache, 32 x 37"

TAG Gallery is proud to present Waterworks, a series of works by Katie Crown. This series stretches what can be achieved with watercolor paint. You will not find traditional watercolors here. Seeing these mainly non-objective paintings provides direct sensory excitement. “I hope viewers feel like they’ve just gotten off a roller coaster. Watercolor works for this. I love the free feeling that watercolor allows, finding its own surprising, unexpected forms as it dries,” Crown says.

Katie Crown, Mountain Bubblebath, Watercolor and gouache, 47.5 x 49"

Using water-soluble pigments in non-traditional ways, the colors are intensely saturated and expressive. Crown juxtaposes patterns to build excitement, such as combinations of angular and circular shapes that deliver strong masculine and feminine energies. She sometimes puts her brushes away and sprays the paint to get a wild edge reminiscent of graffiti.

Katie Crown, Sedona Arizona, Watercolor and gouache, 31.5 x 38.75"

Crown is a native of Southern California. Some of her abstract watercolors, such as “Memory of the South Bay,” draw from her experiences growing up in Manhattan Beach in the 1950s and ‘60s. Some paintings in this show started out decades ago as landscapes and have now been reworked and enlarged into non-objective works that celebrate the art of painting. “Sometimes I add paper to expand my statement until the painting cries, ‘Mercy,’ she says. “I want my paintings to be visually exciting in and of themselves.”

Katie Crown, Memory of South Bay, Watercolor and gouache, 32.25 x 38.25"

The show runs through November 17.
Artist Talk: Saturday, November 10th, 3 PM

Current Exhibition: Go Woon Choi, Katie Crown, Camey McGilvray, Damon Reinagle

October 23 – November 17, 2018
Reception: Saturday, October 27, 5-8 pm
Artist Talk: Saturday, November 10th, 3pm

Go Woon Choi - Metaphor

Go Woon Choi, Untitled 01, Oil, 30 x 48

Katie Crown - Waterworks

Katie Crown, Fly Away, Watercolor and gouache on paper, 47 x 41"

Camey McGilvray - Wire World

Camey McGilvray, Rapunzel, Powder coated steel, 75 x 30 x 3"

Damon Reinagle - Hidden Agendas

Damon Reinagle, Her Royal Magesty, 32 x 18

Artist Spotlight: Katie Crown -- Watercolors

Katie Crown, Crossing Signal, Watercolor, 49.5 x 49" 

Watercolors, Katie Crown’s newest exhibition at TAG, features abstract watercolors that focus on the convergence of shape, form, and color. 

Katie Crown, Quartet, Watercolor, gouache, 37.5 x 30.5"

Though the works were completed in 2017, many pieces were based on watercolors Crown painted in the 1970s and 1980s, updated and adorned with geometric and chromatic patterns. To this end, Crown views this renewed expedition into her past as a journey into an artistic diary. 

Katie Crown, Curious Forest, Watercolor, gouache, 38.5 x 30"

The work started as landscapes but evolved into non-objective, abstract, and geometric forms. 

Compositionally, arcs and triangles are mainstays of this work while Crown utilizes airbrush techniques as well as expressive, saturated color to bring a sense of texture and grit to the works, engrossing the viewer in each piece’s own geometric universe.

Katie Crown, Flag of No Nation, Watercolor, gouache, 54 x 47"

Tuesday, November 21st – Saturday, December 16th

Artist Panel Discussion: Saturday, December 9, 3pm

Current Exhibition: Katie Crown, Deborah Decker, Joan Wynn

Tuesday, November 21st – Saturday, December 16th

Opening Reception: Saturday, November 25, 6 – 9PM

Artist Panel Discussion: Saturday, December 9, 3PM

Katie Crown - Watercolors

Katie Crown, Carnival, Watercolor, 48 x 36"

Deborah Decker – Under the Radar

Deborah Decker, Zarhia, Oil on glassine, 67 x 36"

Joan Wynn - Alive

Joan Wynn. On High, Brass, cast concrete, 14 x 6 x 3"

Artist Spotlight: Katie Crown's "Audiences"

Katie Crown, Silent Majority, Oil on canvas, 36 x 48"

TAG Gallery’s exhibition of paintings and drawings by Katie Crown comes just in time for the election countdown. Crown has been experimenting with the theme of audiences – of individuals engulfed within a group. Crowds in her colorful paintings and in her black-and-white drawings return the art viewer’s gaze. These are works of the people and for the people, but also commentary about alienation. As Crown worked on audience paintings recently, she contemplated the categorizing of voters who will decide in November about our future. “People get labeled by group,” she noted, “What does an ‘undecided’ person look like, anyway? What about a group of them?”

Katie Crown, Undecided, Oil on canvas, 36 x 48"

Everyone has been part of audiences. Viewing Crown’s audiences brings that shared experience to mind. Being part of an audience seems to give people carte blanche to behave any way they choose. At the gallery, though, there’s no need to silence your cell phone and refrain from talking. 

Katie Crown, Respect Their Elders, Pencil and Charcoal, 46 x 32"

Is the individual diminished by becoming subsumed in a group or strengthened by unity with others? Crown’s work explores this visually with the challenge of creating exciting compositions built on faces and clothes of various people in her audiences. Her focus on audiences previously took the form of ceramic sculptures and then film-noir inspired black-and-white paintings. Her current show dazzles with colorful individual fashion choices trellised onto the gridded structure of heads in rows. Crown says, “I love working with patterns,” and the joy of that beams through the tight-knit compositions.

Katie Crown, Standing Room Only, Oil on canvas, 36 x 48"

Katie's work will be on view at TAG through November 19.
Gallery events include:
Opening Reception: Saturday, November 5, 5-8pm
Meet the Artist: Saturday, Nov 12, 3 pm

Current Exhibition: Lorraine Bubar, Katie Crown, Carol Kleinman, Elizabeth Szymczak

October 25th - November 19th, 2016

Opening Reception: Saturday, November 5th, 5-8PM

Artist Panel: Saturday, November 12th, 2016, 3pm

Lorraine Bubar – Underwater

Lorraine Bubar, On the Surface, Papercut, 22x31"

Katie Crown – Audiences

Katie Crown, Voir Dire, Oil on canvas, 48 x 60"

Carol Kleinman – The Secret Life of Windows

Carol Kleinman, Paris - Quartet, Single exposure image on canvas, 11 x 30"

Elizabeth Szymczak - Transition

Elizabeth Szymczak, May the Force Be With You, Oil on canvas, 24 x 36"

"In Transit" Group Show at TAG

Katie Crown, Locomotion, 37 x 30"

Coinciding with the grand opening of Santa Monica’s new Expo Line, TAG Gallery presents In Transit, a group show exploring the significance behind the process of “transition”.

Pam Douglas, The Horizon Line, Acrylic on linen, 40x20"

Dating back to its original purpose in 1875, Bergamot Station has always been a place of transit. It started as a stop and car storage area along the Independence Railroad and then for the Pacific Electric trolley system. Even after passenger service ceased, and manufacturers moved in, Bergamot has always encompassed a sense of physical progression. Although still retaining its industrial feel, Bergamot has quite literally transitioned in it’s own right, growing into the dynamic arts complex we know today.

Joan Wynn, Phantom Journey, Welded steel, 28 x 13 x 5.5"

Exploring the many facets of these changes, In Transit embodies the many stops along the way to our final destination. Whether it be a transition between jobs, locations, stages of life, or changes in relationships, as human beings we are always transforming. Transition is where we find the creative potential for that growth. It is the energy we use to travel from one place to another. It is the determination of where we end up, regardless of where we thought we were headed. Transition is a journey that can last a minute or a millennium.

Donn Delson, 532,  Archival metallic acrylic facemount, 20 x 30" Edition of 15.

Anne M Bray, Four Trucks (Grey, Red, Blue, Shadows), Digital watercolor printed on aluminum, each 7 x 5", Edition of 10

Lorraine Bubar, In Route, Papercut, 47x52"

The show runs through June 11, 2016.

Walk the Shows: Katie Crown, Gary Polonsky, Joan Ransohoff, Tom Wheeler

Enjoy this virtual tour of the current shows. Come see the work in person at TAG until June 13th.

TAG Video Show 6 2015 from TAG Gallery on Vimeo.

Coming Exhibition: Katie Crown, Gary Polonsky, Joan Ransohoff, Tom Wheeler

Tues May 19 - Sat June 13, 2015 

Reception: Sat., May 30, 5-8 p.m. 

Artist Talk: Sat., June 6, 3 p.m. 

KATIE CROWN

Audiences

Katie Crown, Audience 4, Oil on canvas, 49x73"

Katie Crown’s new paintings of audiences are an extension of her earlier ceramic sculptures of audiences and her paintings of people in other group settings. She goes for humor in all these works, now with a palette from black to white. 

Her favorite movies are the gritty film noir dramas from the 1940s and ‘50s, and these audience paintings can be seen as a nod to noir: raw, not tasteful.  Crown was influenced by German Expressionist art, and film noir actually grew out of interest in early German Expressionist film.  The contorted faces and odd angles intrigue her.  When studying at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, she took courses in German Expressionist film and literature.  Katie loves Paul Klee for his humor and poetic sense, but when painting figuratively she's more indebted to Max Beckmann and Ludwig Kirchner.  Crown uses patterns to energize the scenes. Her “audiences” ride the border between reality and cartoon.  

GARY POLONSKY

New Work from the Food Series

Gary Polonsky, Del Monte Fruit Cocktail, Acrylic and mixed media, 21 x 9 x 9"

Breaking from the flat surface of traditional painting, Gary Polonsky brings three-dimensional painting to a new level of depth and focus as he revisits his food series. Polonsky began exploring non-traditional mediums and eventually settled on a combination of Balsawood, Styrofoam and wire-mesh to create eye-catching wall-based constructions that leave the viewer awestruck.

Though wall-based, Polonsky’s work have a tangible quality. One is very tempted to touch and feel the work. It is as if the pieces are teasing the viewer. They are clearly not edible, but one has an insatiable desire to pick them up and take a bite! 

JOAN RANSOHOFF

POSTCARDS FROM THE FIELD

Joan Ransohoff, Santa Ynez Vineyard, Oil on canvas, 10 x 18"

Joan Ransohoff's exhibition of work features original paintings done on location and inspired by the artist’s travels around the country, particularly California, Idaho, Utah, Washington, Connecticut, New York and the Hudson River Valley. Not all paintings are done on location to completion. Some are studies on site and finished in the studio. Working from nature directly allows Ransohoff to see color and shadow differently and in the studio, she uses photographs to sharpen her memory. On location, she makes quick sketches of the landscape to get the composition. Then she focuses on color.

Ransohoff is an instinctual painter, and tries not to get too detailed. Ultimately, her goal is to load the car and head out to find a scene that challenges her to try and capture its freshness. Joan Ransohoff is an artist member of the California Art Club and serves on the board of The California Art Academy and Museum.

TOM WHEELER

Into the Night

Tom Wheeler, The Great Green Electric, Archival pigment print, ed. 1/10, 36 x 44”

Tom Wheeler likes to light things up, literally, and with flashlights. That is probably a good thing, or maybe a necessity, because he is a landscape photographer who works in complete darkness. 

Outdoor photographers often speak passionately of light, created uniquely at a moment in time by nature, by something close to divine circumstance. Wheeler approaches the use of light, and even photographic elements themselves, quite differently in his landscape imagery. 

Landscape photography is always at the foundation of his images. Most of his photography is, in fact, about the landscape first, and then an enhancement, or artistic license with light tools. All imagery is hand-made at the time of exposure and there are no additions by Photoshop or any other means added in post-production processing. Some of his themes include whimsy. Beach balls in the desert, a life-sized plastic horse, or a cement deer are all fair “game”. But on closer look, there is also a serious reverence to nature as well. In all his artwork there is interpretation, but even the subjects in his whimsical work are most often framed within spectacular elements of natural surroundings. The rugged and often remote "wilds" of the western U.S. are subject locations of preference, while unspoiled deserts, mountains, and forests of this region offer a myriad of photo opportunities.  

Coming Exhibition: Anne M Bray, Katie Crown, Jane Peterson

June 17 - July 12, 2014

Opening Reception:
Saturday June 21, 5-8pm

Artist Talk:
Saturday June 28, 3pm

On the Edge: US, Anne M Bray

Anne M Bray, Gas Station, TX, Digital Watercolor on Aluminum, 4x6"

In her latest series, Anne M Bray provides a visual documentation of the perimeter of the 48 contiguous U.S. states. “Having already driven across the U.S. more than twelve times, I got the notion to try something new,” says Bray. After investigating ways to document her 300-400 mile driving days over the course of her solo venture, Bray opted for digital photography. Using the Waterlogue App, Bray transformed her initial photographs into digital “watercolors” before printing them on aluminum at postcard scale. Bray presents the images as continuous strips, much like how she experienced the landscape as it rolled by her car windows. Each wall showcases a different perimeter of the country: South, East, North, and West. The effect is a passenger seat view of her journey on the country’s roads less traveled.

SWING, Katie Crown

Katie Crown, Dancers Over LA, Watercolor on Paper, 38x29"

In her latest series, Katie Crown challenges the traditional watercolor medium to create vibrant, large-scale swing dancers. Crown’s skilled brushwork captures remarkable detail in her subjects’ expressions and gestures as animated figures dance across monumental stretches of paper - some standing five feet tall. “I like working large, as it pulls people into the scene,” says Crown. “The dancers aren’t grounded. They exist somewhere between reality and cartoon.” Crown says she was initially inspired by the dancers she watched at the Rhythm Room, a blues club she frequented while living in Arizona, as well as summer concerts in Culver City. Her interest grew and she began to also collect photos of people dancing. “I don’t go for people embracing one another in their dance, but people separated from one another,” says Crown. “There’s a theme of alienation, but it’s [also] humorous.” In works like “Dancers Over L.A.,” frenzied figures float through space in active motion through downtown Los Angeles skyscrapers, each dancing independently from one another. Crown uses stiff oil-paint brushes to dryly apply watercolor paint, scratching back and forth to create an essence of movement. Crown’s work radiates with a bold sense of color that matches the musical quality of her playfully surreal compositions.

an.i.mal, Jane Peterson

Jane Peterson, Sentries, Archival Pigment Print, 20x16"

In Jane Peterson’s latest series, she further explores the spectrum of human emotion with particular attention to anxiety, passion, and fear. Cartoon-like characters make their way through Peterson’s fanciful compositions, ranging from grotesque insects and other worldly creatures to abstracted human forms that exist in an environment not entirely foreign from her viewers. “I find particular beauty in the exoskeleton of some insects. I imagine that hard shell form of protection working very well for other animals, including humans,” says Peterson. “Expressions such as ‘thick skin,’ or ‘iron will,’ when applied to humans, describe a metaphorical armor.” Surrealist imagery permeates Peterson’s two-dimensional prints and three-dimensional carvings as her figures wander between reality and the subconscious, taking on personalities that are decidedly familiar, yet eerie. In a series of images portraying a character Peterson calls the “Stomach Man,” the figure’s solar plexus - signifying the seat of fear - protrudes outside the body, becoming an appendage like an arm or a leg. Peterson uses this exaggerated body language to illustrate universal emotions of insecurity and vulnerability. A percentage of the sales proceeds will go to the Humane Society of Ventura County (HSVC).

TAG at Palm Spring Fine Art Fair

In a week, ten TAG artists are headed to the Palm Springs Fine Art Fair, Booth 111.

A limited number of reserved tickets are available either a VIP PASS (+1, every day) or a single DAY PASS. Info and links follow below.

VIP PASS gives you and a guest access to
Every day of the fair February 14-16
+ Opening Preview Thu Feb 13, 7-9:30pm
LINK

DAY PASS gives you access to
Any 1 day of the fair February 14, 15 or 16
LINK

Show schedule
Thursday Feb 13, 7:00-9:30pm
Friday Feb 14, 11am-8pm
Saturday Feb 15, 11am-8pm
Sunday Feb 16, 11am-6pm

Location
Palm Springs Convention Center
277 N Avenida Caballeros
Palm Springs CA 92262
MAP 

Artists participating:

Anne M Bray
Christo Brock
Katie Crown
Cynthia Alexander
Pam Douglas
Peter Kempson
Suki Kuss
Gary Polonsky
Lina Sue Price
Darlyn Susan Yee
 
We hope to see you there!

Coming Exhibition: Lorraine Bubar, Katie Crown, Pam Douglas

Opening Reception:
Saturday, September 7, 2013, 5-8 p.m.

Artist Talk:
Saturday, September 21, 2013, 3-4 p.m.

Lorraine Bubar, My Lovely Planet

Lorraine Bubar, No Turning Back, Papercut, 27 x 47 in., 2013

Artist Lorraine Bubar's current exhibition celebrates the beauty of the planet’s various ecosystems. From Antarctic landscapes filled with penguins and whales to the snakes and tortoises of the red rocky desert, Bubar’s papercuts are kaleidoscopes of bold color, texture, and depth. Bubar captures the diverse taxonomy of flora and fauna that make each natural environment unique. Other scenes convey the chaos of the modern world as freeway interchanges and construction spread across the Los Angeles and Santa Monica landscapes, transforming the natural world. Her intricate lacework of layered papers illustrates both the fragility and the strength of the paper medium, as well as the fragility and strength of these environments. Bubar develops the historic tradition of papercutting into an artistic one. The artist’s interest in papercutting developed out of a love of traveling the world, hiking in its mountains, and a desire to honor its diverse cultures through an art form that crosses the boundaries of culture, art, and craft.

Katie Crown, Audiences and Waiting Rooms

Katie Crown, Shades, Ceramic, wood, steel wool, 66 x 53 x 6", 2013

In her latest exhibition, artist Katie Crown fuses her art with commonly shared social experiences. Her current subjects - audiences and waiting rooms - are fueled by the feelings of both anticipation and humor that can arise from these environments. "My sculptures are like concrete cartoons that depict different moods," says Katie Crown. "I love to make people laugh." Fanciful faces sing and laugh in unison in Crown's colorful ceramic sculptures as comedy is embedded within their forms. Others portray the alienation of individuals within the crowd. "There's something intrinsically engaging about depicting groups," says Crown. "The question arises as to who is watching whom. The viewer is in the hot seat." According to Crown, her audience series was inspired by her visit to the archaeological museum in Athens, Greece, where she encountered rows of tiny marble and ceramic busts. Her waiting room series grew from the many doctor visits during her experience with cancer, and morphed into surrealistic fantasies. Both experiences allowed for intense social observation, providing a new perspective on the sculptural medium.

Pam Douglas, The Life of Air

Pam Douglas, The Tree Stood Through It All, Inks and Mixed Media on Silk, 30 x 45", 2013

After exhibiting widely this year at the African American Museum, the Palm Springs Fine Art Fair, Gallery 417, and now TAG Gallery, artist Pam Douglas’ current show, The Life of Air: Paintings on Silk completes her series exploring Earth’s primal energies of water, fire, and air. Painting on silk panels, Douglas maneuvers inks and water-based media to seep through multiple layers. Unlike using traditional canvas, this technique creates a visual dimensionality that is simultaneously delicate and deep. “These new works experiment with transparencies where the motion of air flows through abstracted imagery. I chose air to explore the subtle power within an invisible energy,” says Douglas. “I also wanted to evoke the transparencies of our time where so much of life is permeable and fleeting.” These ethereal landscapes and abstractions explore the ways experimental materials transform the painting experience in a meditation on the veil between seen and unseen.

Cultural IllusionsNew Exhibit TAG GalleryFebruary 28 - March 24, 2012Featuring:Katie Crown, Ernie Marjoram, Juan Rosenfeldt

Opening Reception: Saturday, March 3, 2012 5-8 PM
Artist Panel: Saturday, March 10, 2012, 3 pm

Figuratively Speaking, Katie Crown


Mixing humour and noir, Katie Crown’s figurative paintings darken the sunny, saturated sea-sides of Southern California. Both her oil paintings and ceramic sculptures are characterized by a play on geometric patterns and the pathos of the human condition. Her pieces might seem the California love child of Mondrian and Alice Neel, capturing an isolated, voyeuristic beach culture, culminating in a Dis-United States of America. Crown navigates the familiar beaches of Southern California where fun in the sun actually reveals a complex and dark and entertaining social dance.

Guilty Pleasures, Ernie Marjoram


In Ernie Marjoram’s latest show, Guilty Pleasures at TAG Gallery, the Los Angeles based oil painter monumentalizes our soothing psychological yet "not-so-healthy" dishes, and examines the moment just before we bite. We zoom in on the foods we take for granted, and discover their personas, temperaments and tastes through the thick impastos of pasta, pot roasts, and yes, even cheeseburgers. We enter the landscape of our own anxieties, taking stock of the thick, fun and exuberant dishes that give us comfort in our times of emotional malaise.

Elements of Change, Juan Rosenfeldt


As if dioramas from the story of Coelho’s Alchemist, the works of Juan Rosenfeldt transform found objects of earthly time into contained experiences of eternal aesthetic contemplation. In the Elements of Change at TAG Gallery, the Venezuelan-born Rosenfeldt creates a visual correlation to Borges’ Magical Realism suffused with the surrealism of Meret Oppenheim, and Joseph Cornell. In examining the delicate balances of computer parts, butterflies, stamps and string, we discover the fragile nature of our existence and the sheer wonder of it’s fruition.

TAG Interview With Katie Crown

Katie Crown
Venice Beach Buzz
oil on canvas 68 x 56"

As an artist working in more than one medium, both oil and ceramics, do you find that the two mediums influence each other? If so, in what ways, and how do you decide which to use?

In the instance of my escalator painting series I decided to do the escalator sculpture as well, but it's rare for me to work on the same theme in both media. Sometimes it's my feeling that I can't do justice to some theme in paint, so that I take it up in clay. When a figurative oil painting gets very cartoonish or distorted, then it might resemble a figurative sculpture, but generally I keep them separate. When I'm glazing my ceramic sculptures some of the color sense from my paintings takes hold. I tend to move back and forth between the two media. If a painting has been particularly difficult to finish, then I know it's time to sculpt for a while. Also when all of the processes involved in sculpting clay seem too cumbersome, then I'll get back to painting, which is so much more spontaneous.

Is there a separation between your "normal" life and your artwork? If so, how do you manage to keep each in its place?

My artwork consumes my life. But it is a relief after working 9-5 on my art to be able to quit for a while and focus on something else.

Katie Crown
French People Have Fun
oil on canvas 73 x 61"

What is your thought process while making a painting?

My paintings tend to be large, so I move in and out of the room where my painting is hanging and work on it that way. I like to be able to get back about 30 feet or more so I can judge what's going on. Then when I have it at a stage I like from afar, I have to work with it up close so that it reads well from near and far. Color is super important to me, so I'm always concentrating on making the color sing.

Are your family and friends supportive of your art?

I only have my younger sister left in my family and I think she's pretty burnt out from having a father who was so obsessed with his artwork. So I tend not to talk art with her. My friends are very supportive of my art. I have a few who like to go on drawing excursions with me. My husband is quite an advocate of my art and helps facilitate some of the needs that my sculptures introduce, like making stands or cutting wooden tables for my cafe scenes.

Do you have a favorite painting? (Yours or somebody else's) ?

It's hard to choose just one. But if I'm including museums in the Los Angeles area, I love the Ensor painting, "Christ Entering Brussels" at the Getty museum. It's hilarious, with lots of loony characters masquerading as saints. For some reason it seems familiar. They also have it hanging with Munch's great painting, "Starry Night". So you have a great comment on humanity hanging with a great comment on nature.

Katie Crown painting.

Katie Crown's Exhibition begins February 28, 2012.

March 1-26, 2011 Katie Crown, Shelley Lazarus, Ernie Marjoram

 Reception: Saturday, March 12, 5-8 pm
Artist Panel: Saturday, March 19th, 3-4 pm

 Katie Crown
Beach Scenes, LA 

Katie Crown’s new work puts California figurative painting into California landscapes in her large scale, local beach scenes. Crown, who grew up in Manhattan Beach, admits to finding the parade of characters found along California’s coast an irresistible subject. “I love pattern,” she explains, “bathing suits, postures, and body shapes give me a playground of possibilities for patterns and pigments." In these paintings, diverse characters frolic within starkly geometric sand and waves, either enjoying or simply contemplating life. Yet, people are shown faceless and seemingly isolated from their surrounding activities, which adds an air of eerie ambiguity to the otherwise mirthful scenes. "Hey, it’s California, nobody connects. Alienation lives at the beach, too," says Crown.

 Shelley Lazarus
Just Desserts 

Standing in the tradition of California colorists, Shelley Lazarus explores the sweet coda of any meal: desserts. Like Hockney’s whimsical landscapes, Lazarus’ pieces in Just Desserts use saturated watercolors, acrylic, graphites and crayons to create mouth-watering creations. The dripping chocolate and luscious cakes brought back memories of her mother, “who always checked out the desserts in a restaurant before the entrees.” 

Ernie Marjoram 
Italy, en Plein Air

Marjoram brings his intricate knowledge of light, form and space into a rich exploration of the central Italian landscape. With only natural available light, he situates himself in the environment, capturing the chiaroscuro of the Italian cityscape and the expanse of the countryside, reminiscent of Pisarro and Cezanne. Having worked for Disney, and currently an instructor at the American Film Institute, he interweaves illustration and fine art, re-seeing the monuments and vistas of the Italian Renaissance. Marjoram believes “art and architecture are a part of life”, and he brings them to life in this current exhibit.

Katie Crown Interview

Katie Crown
Santa Monica Pier No.1
oil on canvas 66 x 62"

Where did you grow up?

I grew up down in Manhattan Beach, California, but moved to the suburbs of Washington D.C. when I was 13. I stayed in the D.C. area through high school. I graduated from college from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in conjunction with Tufts University.

How long have you been an artist and when did you consider yourself an artist?

I feel like I've been an artist most of my life. My father was a recognized abstract watercolor painter, and I grew up going on painting trips with him, in California and all over the Southwest.

Where do you your find inspiration for your works and how do you choose your subject matter?

I get my inspiration from things that set off my sense of humor. I see life as sort of a running cartoon. In my ceramics pieces I like to juxtapose fairly serious looking people with material things which are pleasurable and bring happiness. It's sort of a way of saying that material items can't bring one happiness, but at the same time it's fun to see the divide between whether we have the appearance of happiness and whether, often food, can bring about happiness. I like to use food a lot for some reason. Maybe I'm just hungry.

In my big oil paintings the inspiration is set off by people at the beach. I try to have the people not interact with one another, but just playing out their own drama. I like to use alienation in a situation where one would think people would connect. I see it all as funny in a sad way.


Katie Crown
Tickled Pink
oil on canvas 50 x 62"

Can you name a few of the most important (to you) artists whose work you like?

There are so many artists that have inspired me, starting with my dad, Keith Crown. But I've also been influenced by Saul Steinberg, Alice Neel, Joan Brown, people that play with the figure. I love Nathan Oliveira and Red Grooms too.

Why do you make art?

I do art to keep myself from falling into deep depression. The work is cathartic for me, I need to do it.

What is the hardest thing about being an artist? The best thing?

The hardest thing for me about being an artist is any time that I have to explain my art to people, or speak about what I do. I'm mortified by public speaking and like to let my art speak for me.

The best thing about art for me is it's ability to keep me going and finding new ways to express myself.


Katie Crown

Katie Crown's exhibition opens March 1, 2011.