Project Description

For the ticketing area, Francesco Simeti is creating a series of collaged images that will be translated into glass tiles. His design incorporates icons of Los Angeles architecture with flora from the surrounding area, including the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center campus and the UCLA Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Garden, creating a harmonious, monumental landscape. This fictional utopian world brings humans and nature together and brings peace and calm into a space that can be busy with riders heading towards their destinations.

In conjunction with the station artwork, Simeti led a two-day art-making workshop for Veterans who live on the campus of the VA. The workshop was a collaboration between Metro Art, the West LA VA Medical Center and the UCLA Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Garden. Simeti also led a third workshop in the Veteran’s Garden at the West LA VA. Contributions by Veterans who attended the workshops are incorporated into Simeti’s artwork design.

Special thanks to the Veterans who contributed: Joseph D. Avila, Calvin Evans, Paul Gonzalez, Dan Hain, Brandi Lago, and Lugene Nance-Cronk.

Artist Statement

“My approach to public art practice has been to think about the overall environment that surrounds the space of the work. Who occupies the space? How is the space used? In my work I try to create a sense of wonder and marvel and my hope is that the casual visitor can experience this in the most unexpected ways.”

About the Artist

FRANCESCO SIMETI (b. 1968, Palermo, Italy) is known for creating aesthetically seductive site-specific installations that reveal a more complicated subtext; he often appropriates images from contemporary media to question their role in public discourse. Simeti earned a Diploma in Scultura (equivalent to a Bachelor of Fine Arts) from the Accademia di Belle Arti in Bologna. A prolific public artist, he has completed commissions for Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), Brooklyn (2012); Carcere di Bollate (Bollate Prison), Bollate, Italy (2016); Multnomah County Health Department, Portland, Oregon (2019); and Chicago Transit Authority (2020), among many others. Simeti’s work has been exhibited internationally and is in the collections of Museo del Novecento, Milan; Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York; Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia; and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. 

Location: Westwood/VA Hospital