Project Description
Sandow Birk’s artwork will depict a panorama of Los Angeles over 150 feet long focusing on the area around the future station and beyond. The scene spans millennia, as prehistoric creatures roam past historic and contemporary buildings such as the Wadsworth Chapel, the oldest building on Wilshire Blvd., the gates to the VA with the National Soldiers Home plaques, and the main hospital at the West LA VA Medical Center that was built in 1977. Horse-drawn carriages and trams travel alongside buses from different eras, and the USS Los Angeles (CA-135) Naval cruiser emerges from behind the old Tropical Ice Gardens, an ice rink in the neighborhood from the 1930s. Birk’s artworks are rendered by hand, the composition is dense with minute details, riders will see something new in the artwork every time they look at it. Reflecting on the station’s proximity to the VA, Birk celebrates the station’s role in connecting the veteran community with campus services and broader Los Angeles County.
Detail of artwork design in progress ‘A Panorama of the City and History of Los Angeles from Pre-History to the Present Day’
‘A Panorama of the City and History of Los Angeles from Pre-History to the Present Day’ full artwork design in progress
Artist Statement
“The hope is that the complexity of the imagery and the vastness of its scope across time and space will create an image that is interesting and informative, even during repeated viewings by those who might commute by Metro and who would see the image every day.“
In the Community
In conjunction with the station artwork, Birk led a group on a three-hour urban sketching workshop through the streets of Westwood. The workshop was organized by the Brentwood Art Center in collaboration with Metro Art and visited some landmarks that will be featured in the artwork. Participants drew what they saw, then shared their sketches and spoke about the significance of the sights they chose to draw.
About the Artist
SANDOW BIRK (b. 1962, Detroit) develops expansive, multi-media art projects that deal with a wide variety of contemporary subjects, including inner-city violence, graffiti, social and political conflicts, surfing, and skateboarding. Birk grew up on the beaches of Orange County, CA, and his sister is a 25–year veteran of the U.S. Coast Guard. Notable public art projects include a 400 square foot ceramic tile mural in collaboration with Elyse Pignolet for Hey Rookie Pool, San Pedro, CA (2017), and three large-scale, hand painted murals in collaboration with Elyse Pignolet for SF Jazz, San Francisco, CA (2013). Birk earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Otis Art Institute of Parsons School of Design (now Otis College of Art and Design) in 1988. His many awards include an NEA International Exchange Scholarship (1995) to study mural painting in Mexico City, a Guggenheim Fellowship (1996), a Fulbright Scholarship (1997), and a Gottlieb Foundation Individual Support Grant (2021). His work has been exhibited internationally and is in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Metropolitan Museum of Art, Harvard University Art Museum, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma in Italy, and Kunstmuseum Reutlingen in Germany.
Location: Westwood/VA Hospital
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