Will Power Allegory
The 14 colorful panels of Audrey Chan’s Will Power Allegory feature fluid vignettes of people and symbols from Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo, Arts District, Skid Row, Bronzeville and Gabrielino/Tongva Tribe.
The 14 colorful panels of Audrey Chan’s Will Power Allegory feature fluid vignettes of people and symbols from Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo, Arts District, Skid Row, Bronzeville and Gabrielino/Tongva Tribe.
At Grand Station, artist Mark Lere’s project “Who, What, Where?” consists of a series of images sandblasted into the platform pavement.
Twelve Venetian glass mosaic panels installed at the Pacific Station have been designed by artist June Edmonds and are titled, We Know Who We Are.
Located near the confluence of the Arroyo Seco and the Los Angeles River, the Lincoln/Cypress station location for “Water Street: River of Dreams” provided artist Cheri Gaulke with an important reference for that she used to metaphorically connect the Gabrielino (Tongva) Indians who once inhabited the area with a contemporary flowing landscape.
Project Description As commuters make their way from the Sierra Madre Villa Parking and Bus Facility at the terminus of the Metro L Line (Gold) to Pasadena, they enter a steel mesh-enclosed pedestrian bridge with cool blue painted structural beams and posts. As they reach the end of this walkway and enter the station’s stairwells leading to the platform level, they are confronted by Tony Gleaton’s large photographic portraits suspended some 15-feet above them. Printed on two double-sided porcelain enamel steel panels and visible from both directions, the blue-toned portraits echo the blue enclosure of the bridge, and depict local inhabitants the artist describes as “the others.” These photographs reflect the distinct differences and diversity between us all, and mirror the connecting glance, embrace, and human emotion we share and understand together. About the Artist TONY GLEATON has pursued an artistic career as a photographer since 1974. His interest in rodeo performers and black and Native American cowboys influenced a series of portraits of African-, Native-, Euro-, Mexican, and Mexican-American cowboys shot throughout Texas, Colorado, Nevada, …
For her artwork, Andrea Bowers will imbue the glass walls of the station’s entrance pavilion with messages of unity and democracy through her translation of the slogans “El pueblo unido jamás será vencido” (The people united will never be divided) and “By independence we mean the right to self-determination, self-government and freedom.”
Ann Hamilton’s artwork will wrap the station’s glass entry pavilion in woven lines inspired by the significance of the station’s downtown location and the surrounding hub of cultural institutions as a place of crossings, intersections and exchanges.
Thomas Eatherton’s “Unity” located on the A Line (Blue) tunnel walls between 7th Street/Metro Center Station and Pico Station was the first art work to be installed in the system.
With Twelve Principles, Joe Lewis seeks to emphasize shared values that exist in a world full of differences.
Robin Brailsford’s Time and Presence at Pico Station examines the disparity between human scale and the vastness of the earth and the cosmos.
Wheels of Change by Chusien Chang at the Chinatown Station is based on the ancient Chinese book of I Ching (translated as Book of Changes)
Installed at eye level along the platform walls of 7th/Metro Center Station, Joyce Kozloff’s two long and narrow hand painted ceramic tile murals, The Movies: Fantasies, and The Movies: Spectacles, resemble an unfolding film strip.
The Memorial Park Station inspired John Valadez to honor the area’s earliest indigenous artists, whose ancient pictographs and carvings have been discovered in caves and on rock cliffs and natural outcroppings throughout Southern California.
Project Description Artist Jud Fine took his cue for the station artwork from the Greene & Greene-designed Oaklawn Waiting Station, built in 1906 on Fair Oaks Avenue. For the station project, Fine created an 18-foot tall copper-bound “Stone Tree” with bluntly cut limbs that rise staunchly amidst a backdrop of heavy wood beams and arroyo stones. Referencing the mythical tree of life, it stands as a formidable icon to the Craftsman Style of architecture known throughout the area, and represents the movement’s joining together of natural elements and human design. Fine’s replicated tree is reminiscent of the ficus trees that line the streets throughout Highland Park. Two elderly examples of these trees still exist on Avenue 58 adjacent to the station, and have “enveloped” their original steel tree cages just as Fine’s “Stone Tree” is burgeoning around its wrapped copper cable. On the station’s platform, two canopy-support posts turned topsy-turvy with structural limbs anchored to the ground provide seating for waiting passengers. Referred to as “Inverted Post” by the artist, these elements represent a counterpoint …
At the two levels of Slauson Station, artist collaborative group East Los Streetscapers examines the culture and history of the neighborhood of the station in “South Central Suite.”
Spirit of the San Gabriel River by Andrea Myklebust and Stanton Gray Sears honors the various communities that over the centuries have benefitted from the rich Duarte-area landscape and nearby San Gabriel River.
A new series of sculptural parasols titled “Second Line” by artists Jamex and Einar de la Torre front the new Rosa Parks Customer Center and offer shade and enjoyment for the community at future events.
A mythical continuous stream winds through Magic Johnson Park alongside the local icons and characters who serve as hallmarks of a place in which the artist finds “home.”
Contributing to the excitement and energy of the station is Running for the Blue Line by Elliott Pinkney, a group of three metal cut out figures that gives the work its name and captures the hard-working spirit of this industrial community.
In a landscaped area before the entry ramps, a seven-foot-high sculptural rock—shaped by river water over thousands of years—is encircled by a “pool” of handmade glass bricks set in a concrete slab.
Project Description Passengers are greeted at Allen Station, situated along the 210 Freeway median, by Michael Amescua’s dramatic grillwork adorning the street-level entrance. Amescua’s series of steel panels, created in the tradition of papel picado, or punched paper, are painted a deep forest green with brushed stainless steel and red enamel accents, and forms a relief against a golden ceramic tile wall. Papel picado is a folk art that can be traced back to pre-Columbian times, when Mexicans used cutout bark paper depicting a variety of human and animal spirits as offerings to the gods, as a tribute to the Aztec emperor, Moctezuma II, and as decoration in their temples and palaces. Amescua’s panels depict a family of figures and a dog in a mystical romp through the region’s rich flora and fauna—an idyllic background scene that includes a sun and moon, stars that morph into birds, palm and pine trees, mountains and arroyo, river boulders, and rail tracks. These images mimic the surroundings that can be viewed from the station platform above. Another panel …
Mark Steven Greenfield’s glass mosaic, titled Red Car Requiem, for the station’s concourse will be a sentimental tribute to Los Angeles’s historic Pacific Electric Red Cars, a once iconic fixture in the city.
The artist team- Kipp Kobayashi, Noel Korten and Marta Perlas, AIA – created seating environments that produce a strong visual and functional experience for Metro riders at 7th/Metro Center Station, influenced by historic Batchelder tiles in the nearby Fine Arts Building.
Robin Brailsford’s Pioneros de la Rivera de San Gabriel (pioneers of the San Gabriel River, 2015) celebrates the pioneering spirit of the area’s five founding families and their descendants who capitalized on the unique local geology to create a thriving community and industrial center.
At Willowbrook/Rosa Parks Station, artists Michael Massenburg and Robin Strayhorn created 5 seating areas out of concrete and ceramic tile, each seat honoring an important year in the life of Rosa Parks.