Project Description
Inspired by historical maps and the region’s terrain, the artwork consists of four “landscapes.” Fossil Ground includes ink rubbings of fossils excavated during the station construction. Woven Cienega depicts a plaster interpretation of the historic Rancho La Cienega topography with the imprint of basket patterns and snake imagery, referencing indigenous traditions. Medicinal Flora depicts drawings of medicinal plants, while Urban Desert Fauna is an abstraction of water and includes drawings of native animals. History, memory, and imagination merge, inviting viewers to explore the ecological and cultural landscapes woven into the ground beneath their feet.
Mariana Castillo Deball held a fossil rubbing workshop at Dino Fest–an annual event at the Natural History Museum that celebrates dinosaurs, their prehistoric past, and the science that brings their world back to life. Attendees had the opportunity to meet the artist, learn more about her artwork commission, see some of the fossils that were excavated during construction, and create their very own fossil rubbing similar in style to the rubbings that appear in Castillo Deball’s artwork design.
Artist Statement
“The spectator can observe that each field has been partially eclipsed by another image, giving space for the imagination to wander and explore.”
About the Artist
MARIANA CASTILLO DEBALL (b. 1975, Mexico City) is a visual artist whose multidisciplinary practice explores the history of cultural objects and the varied ways artifacts have been interpreted through archaeology and understood across time; her interest in collaborative knowledge creation often leads her to work with experts in science and culture. Deball earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México in 1997 and completed a postgraduate program at Jan van Eyck Academie in the Netherlands in 2003. She has participated in major exhibitions in Europe and the Americas, including the Bienal de São Paulo, Berlin Biennale, dOCUMENTA (13), Kassel and the Venice Biennale. She has exhibited at the Contemporary University Museum, Mexico City, Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen, Modern Art Oxford, Monash University Museum of Art, New Museum, and the San Francisco Art Institute and was recently commissioned to create an artwork for the David Geffen Galleries at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Deball has been a professor of sculpture at Münster Academy of Art since 2015 and is a recipient of the Nationalgalerie Prize (2013), Zurich Art Prize (2012), and Ars Viva Award (2009).
Location: Wilshire/La Cienega Station