Project Description

Rebeca Méndez’s two mosaic murals transform the concourse walls at Expo/Crenshaw Station into a sublime panorama of the sky as seen from Los Angeles. Articulating the progression of time over 24 hours, vertical segments portraying the stars and the moon flank an ethereal cloud-scattered azure. Representing 24 hours, atmospheric slices were transcribed from photographs taken at 15-minute intervals over a number of days and nights. A second mosaic offers a glimpse of a lofted bird wing —visible while descending the escalators to the platform—to reference the long-distance avian migrations of the Arctic Tern, while also evoking the angels called upon during West Angeles Cathedral’s sermons nearby across the street at the corner of Exposition and Crenshaw Boulevards.

In conjunction with her project, Méndez invited the Girl Scout troop associated with West Angeles Church to her UCLA studio, where she shared photography techniques including how to use professional cameras, as well as lab techniques for editing and printing their own works.

 

Artist Statement

“At the Same Time can be understood as . . . [an] emotional timepiece . . . inspiring us to bring our mind and body as we experience, if just for a moment, the fullness of time expressed in the sky above us.”

 

About the Artist

REBECA MÉNDEZ  (b. 1962) is an artist, designer, curator, and educator whose research and practice investigates design and media art in public space, critical approaches to public identities and landscape, and artistic projects based on field investigation methods. Méndez’s diverse works—driven by her interest in perception and embodied experience— develop within art, science and design, and manifest as public art, immersive sound and video installations, and photography, with focuses on eco-feminism and environmental justice. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts, a Master of Fine Arts and received the honorary degree of Doctor of Fine Arts from Art Center College of Design. She lectures internationally, and is a tenured professor and chair in the Department of Design Media Arts, as well as founder and director of the Counterforce Lab at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her works have been exhibited throughout the world and are in permanent collections at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and El Paso Museum of Art. Méndez is the recipient of a fellowship from the California Community Foundation, an AIGA Medal from the American Institute of Graphic Arts, and Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award from the Smithsonian Institution. Her public artworks include Tucson’s January 8th Memorial  in collaboration with Chee Salette Architecture Office and Los Angeles County’s Pico Rivera Library.