This kind of art exhibit is meant to draw in your eye and move your feet to action.
Art and science collide at the Luckman Fine Arts Complex Gallery, Cal State Los Angeles, with the exhibit: “Sinks: Places We Call Home.” The exhibit consists of paintings and other works highlighting long-term ramifications of sinks or reservoirs of pollution on communities of color by two former manufacturing sites: Exide battery recycling plant in Vernon and Athens Tank Farm in Willowbrook.
Artist Beatriz Jaramillo tends to her vertical garden which shifts peoples relationships to the land at the Luckman Galley at Cal State LA on Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024. The show is part of the Getty Center’s “PST Art: Art and Science Collide” initiative. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
Several pieces by artist Maru Garcia, who studied the sciences before turning to visual arts, are mosaic works using contaminated soil from properties near the Exide plant to create pixelated paintings and sculptures.
Related Articles
Namibia, Zimbabwe to slaughter elephants to feed people
Judge’s ruling overturns LA City Council’s phase out and ban on oil drilling
Renowned primatologist, activist Jane Goodall will be guest at Day of Peace festival in San Pedro
Earth has overshot key ‘planetary boundaries,’ scientists warn
Harris supported the Green New Deal. Now, she’s promoting domestic oil drilling
Artist Beatriz Jaramillo’s work takes inspiration from her research of the Athens Tank Farm debacle, creating vertical garden walls. The petroleum tank farm left crude oil reservoirs and contaminated soils. The African-American community living in what was Ujima Village sued and the village was torn down in 1992. Today it is a green space, the site of the Earvin “Magic” Johnson Park. But many former residents still struggle with health conditions they attribute to the tank farm.
In “Boiling Rock 1,” Garcia uses the dirt pellets from the Exide site to illustrate different aspects of soil remediation from properties near the shuttered plant. “It is very relevant,” she says. “It’s a reality that a lot of communities of color are facing. And it is important for people to learn what is happening in their communities.”
Exide has been cited for numerous excessive air toxic emissions of lead and arsenic, which can cause cancer and developmental diseases. Soil remediation of 10,000 homes in working-class Latino neighborhoods of Boyle Heights, East Los Angeles, Maywood, Huntington Park and Commerce is a goal of state and county environmental agencies. Recently, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has scheduled the site to be placed on its Superfund list.
The art exhibition opens Saturday, Sept. 21 and runs through Feb. 15, 2025. It is part of Getty’s “PST Art: Art & Science Collide” initiative.
Garcia, who lives in San Dimas, has had her art work shown at various galleries, including the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery and at Broad Art Center at UCLA.
She calls the exhibit not your typical space to look at art. “It is education and a call to action.”
Related links
9 years after closure, Exide plant in Vernon proposed as Superfund site by EPA
LA County Supervisors to EPA: Put Exide plant on official Superfund cleanup list
Ujima Project (Former Athens Tank Farm)| Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board
How Steve Earle and Shawn Colvin came together
Artists of Rancho Los Amigos Exhibition showcases patient artwork