ARTISTS BREW ARTWORK OF UNUSUAL INGREDIENTS AT LOS ANGELES INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
(Los Angeles, California – December 19, 2012) Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA), in partnership with the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, announces a new installation by Los Angeles-based artists Sophia Allison and Leanne Lee at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). The installation, titled Passage, is composed of coffee filters, which were used, dried, and sewn together, and delicate drawings on rice paper. Using these materials to create, deconstruct, and reconstruct speaks to the notion of process, change, and reinvention. The site-specific installation is on view in the art display case in the Customs Hall of the Tom Bradley International Terminal, on the Lower/Arrivals Level, for ticketed international passengers through March 2013.
Passage references a ritualistic domestic action: making coffee. Water passes through ground coffee and filters, staining the ghost image of the process into the paper. Allison and Lee dried and ironed flat the used filters, then stitched them into clusters reminiscent of floral and vegetative landscapes. Adding to the juxtaposition of organic and inorganic, of ritual and daily activity, the artists incorporated cityscape drawings on rice paper which were stained with watercolor and coffee. Informed by traditional Korean symbols and motifs, these drawings were reconfigured by cutting, tearing, and sewing the images into the clusters of coffee filters. As actual geographies, locations and landscapes shift and fluctuate – physically, mentally, and metaphorically –the materials that comprise this work are non-permanent and fragile. As a modular construct, Passage can be repositioned infinitely, becoming site-specific and speaking to the temporal nature of life.
Allison received her MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and works in mixed media including sewing, sculpture, and installation. Lee received her BA in Studio Art from Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. She is known for her paintings, drawings, sculptures, and installations.
About Los Angeles World Airports Art Program
Initiated in 1990, the purpose of the LAWA Art Program is to provide opportunities for educational, entertaining, and enriching cultural experiences for the traveling public at LAX and LA/Ontario International Airports and the LAX FlyAway® bus terminal. The program showcases local and regional artists through temporary exhibitions and permanent public art installations, which enhance and humanize the overall travel experience for millions every year.
About Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)
LAX is the sixth busiest airport in the world and third in the United States, offering more than 600 daily flights to 91 domestic cities and more than 1,000 weekly nonstop flights to 56 cities in 32 countries on nearly 75 air carriers. It ranks 13th in the world in air cargo tonnage processed. In 2011, LAX served more than 61 million passengers, processed over 1.8 million tons of air cargo valued at nearly $80 billion, and handled 603,912 aircraft operations (landings and takeoffs). LAX is part of a system of three Southern California airports – along with LA/Ontario International and Van Nuys general aviation – that are owned and operated by Los Angeles World Airports, a proprietary department of the City of Los Angeles that receives no funding from the City’s general fund.