Image of Lori LaMont’s Camp Life in the Woods and Tricks of Trapping, 2015 courtesy of the LBMA.

The Long Beach Museum of Art (LBMA) will open three new fall exhibitions on November 20 that will highlight the works of Southern California artists Terry Braunstein, Barbara Strasen and Lori LaMont. The three exhibitions will begin the LBMA 2016 programmatic season and underscore the diversity of exhibits the museum will present in the coming year, the LBMA announced late last week.

Following the immense popularity and buzz generated by the museum’s most recent exhibition, Vitality and Verve: Transforming the Urban Landscape, to close this weekend, which brought internationally acclaimed street artists to Long Beach’s prized local stage, these three new exhibitions will showcase some of the outstanding talent that resides within our city’s boundaries.

Who Is She? is Long Beach artist Terry Braunstein’s first major museum career-spanning retrospective. With nearly 100 pieces in this exhibition, to show November 20, 2015 through February 14, 2016, Braunstein presents for the first time her original collage work, which has been exhibited mostly in photographical reproductions, according to the release. Who Is She? is named after the artist’s 2013 installation.

Gaze up close at Braunstein’s meticulous process of culling, clipping, combining and extracting imagery into uncanny collages; an admirable process in an age of commonplace digital manipulation. See the roots of her work, which include early 20th century European modernism and mid-century American assemblage; see original copies of the artist’s revered artists’ books, new assemblage sculptures, as well as models and photographic prints created in conjunction with the dance set Who Is She?

For nearly 40 years, Braunstein has extensively engaged in a wide array of artistic media, including photography, painting, mosaic, printmaking, stone, steel, brass, public art, performance, site-specific sculpture and video. She brings to the surface layers of hidden meaning that reside beneath seemingly mundane and obvious concepts. The artist creates a compelling visual story as her works examine life’s passages and shared human experiences through a poetic, dreamlike and often paradoxical point of view.

Featured alongside the works will also be a small catalogue with an essay by writer and poet Tosh Berman, published by the LBMA and Thistle & Weed Press.

“These three artists are symbolic of the museum’s mission of showcasing California artists who are active in our thriving and growing art community,” said Executive Director Ron Nelson in a statement. “We are pleased with what the artists have created for their respective exhibitions and we look forward to our members and visitors noting how eclectic these exhibitions are.”

Barbara Strasen: Layer By Layer, to show November 20, 2015 through February 21, 2016, will highlight the complex mixed-media works of San Pedro-based artist Barbara Strasen. The exhibition will feature 24 works and two installations, works that appear to shift depending on the viewer’s point of view.

Vegetables, anatomy, fireworks and astronauts diving through space are just a few of the artist’s chosen subjects to be manipulated, layered and coerced into busy arrangements that may puzzle a viewer, but only at first. She is interested in providing multiple perspectives from a distance down to a “nose-to-paper” closeness like in SuperMegaMultiplexorama, which was originally shown in New York City, according to the release.

Image of Barbara Strasen’s Iguana and William Morris, 2011 courtesy of the LBMA.

Strasen uses both acrylic paint and inkjet prints with materials such as Tyvek, Plexiglass and lenticular lenses to find the harmony between seemingly unrelated concepts. Since her study at the University of California, Berkeley, Strasen had a long and fruitful career exhibiting as an international artist.

Lori LaMont: Under The Influence, to be shown November 20 through February 21, 2016, will feature a large-scale painting by the celebrated Long Beach artist. The painting is one of a series of watercolor works inspired by the camaraderie that sporting events incite in their surrounding societies.

At nearly 21 feet long and five feet high, Camp Life in the Woods and Tricks of Trapping is the foundational piece in the series. It depicts a comical, yet haunting array of animals engaged in sport and plastered with logos one would expect to see at a NASCAR event.

“In the alluring tradition of animal characters directly being affected by the glamour of the constant avalanche of our ever-changing popular culture, Under the Influence narrows the gap between nature vs. culture,” states the description.

LaMont has worked as a professional painter since 1993. Working exclusively in watercolor, the artist’s work shows an incredible attention to detail and an unabashed use of bold, saturated color. Her work has been commissioned for corporate collections and featured in several museum exhibitions and publications.

In addition, LBMA will also open a small exhibition entitled Revisited and Revealed: Selections from the Permanent Collection that will feature a selection of newly acquired artwork by women already in the museum’s permanent collection, to be on display from November 20, 2015 to February 21, 2016.

For more information about the LBMA’s upcoming exhibitions, click here.

Image of Terry Braunstein’s Adolescent Series XII, 1986 courtesy of the LBMA.

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