Robert Plogman

Santa Ana Arrows

painting of a freeway sign with symbols for Interstate 5 and Highway 101, and the words South and Santa Ana and three white arrows pointing down on a black background

Roger Kuntz, Santa Ana Arrows, From the series Sign , circa 1962, Oil on canvas, 60. 72 in. The Buck Collection at UCI Institute and Museum of California Art

Santa Ana Arrows

Roger Kuntz

Musings | Monthly Muse May 2022

When I moved to California in 2016, I was shocked by the car culture. The speed, intensity, and congestion were like nothing I had experienced. Santa Ana Arrows by Roger Kuntz captures a glimpse of the vast automotive infrastructure that suffuses and shapes our everyday lives in the Orange County-Los Angeles megalopolis. The seemingly flat surface on which Kuntz marks linguistic symbols and icons (the stuff of so much Pop art) is all about space, depth, and tactility. What I notice here is the way a streak of daylight cuts across the center of the composition, leaving the corners in shadow. As opposed to the signage that I normally pass which is bathed in bright white light, Kuntz’s selective focus suggests surrounding architecture—nearby structures block out part of the daylight, exposing only a portion of the sign to its rays. How will this streak of light change as the sun moves through the sky? Where will I be when that happens? Long gone. Or maybe stuck in traffic.

Scott Volz, ’22, PhD (Visual Studies)
Graduate Curatorial and Research Assistant, Langson IMCA

Crazy Drawing

colorful figures and animals, drawn in cartoon style, playing instruments and marching playfully alongside a train

Roger Armstrong, Crazy Drawing, 2007, Watercolor, crayon, and soft-tip pen on wove-screen paper, 29 x 37 x 2 in. The Buck Collection at UCI Institute and Museum of California Art

Crazy Drawing

Roger Armstrong

Musings | Monthly Muse April 2022

When was the last time you experienced a full, deep-bellied laugh? I’ve been thinking a lot about comedy and joy lately. It’s so much harder to make someone laugh than it is to make them cry. So much simpler to keep moving than to pass on a word of kindness or elicit a smile. The world has felt so heavy these last two years. We all could use some laughter.

Many reading this may be familiar with the artist Roger Armstrong, an Orange County darling who launched his career in animation working for the likes of Disney and Warner Bros. Known for creating funny animal comic books, he was also recognized for his talent as a Southern California oil and watercolor painter of the everyday. Crazy Drawing (2007), painted by Armstrong in the last few months of his life, made me stop, look, and giggle. What is this brightly colored, unusual cast of characters up to? The capacity for this small work to spark joy is, frankly, delightful. I invite you to pause and experience just that. And maybe share a joke with the next person you see.

Kate Heusner
Executive Director of Development, Langson IMCA

Snow in the High Sierras

painting with rocks and a river in the foreground and snowy mountain range in the background

Edgar Payne, Snow in the High Sierras, Early 20th century, Oil on canvas, 31 x 39 in.UC Irvine Institute and Museum of California Art, Donated in Memory of Christian A. Gerola

Snow in the High Sierras

Edgar Payne

Snow in the High Sierras (early 20th century)
Donated in memory of Christian A. Gerola

Edgar Payne (1883 – 1947)
Primarily self-taught, Edgar Payne is widely recognized as one of the most prominent California Impressionist painters of the early to mid-20th century. An avid plein air artist, he produced dramatic coastal views and mountainous scenes of which the Sierra Nevada mountain range was a favorite. Snow in the High Sierras showcases Payne’s modulation of color to produce atmospheric depth. Payne was a founding member and first president of the Laguna Beach Art Association, an organization that would eventually become the Laguna Art Museum, and wrote in 1941 the influential instructional manual Composition of Outdoor Painting, a book that remains in print. Langson IMCA’s collection includes eight other paintings by Payne.

Year acquired: 2021

S+T

Abstract artwork with red and black horizontal bands punctuated with diagonal streaks of orange, yellow and green

Helen Pashgian, S+T, 1984, Epoxy on canvas, 48 x 90 in. UC Irvine Institute and Museum of California Art, Gift from the collection of Huddie Ryland Behrens and Amy Behrens

S+T

Helen Pashgian

S+T (1984)
Gifted by Huddie Ryland Behrens and Amy Behrens

Helen Pashgian (b. 1934)
In the 1960s, Helen Pashgian was an early pioneer of and central figure in the Light and Space movement in Southern California where she currently lives and works. She employs industrial materials to produce sculptural works that manipulate light, utilizing light itself as a medium. S+T is one of a series of transitional works from the 1970s and 1980s during which Pashgian experimented with new materials and developed resin recipes. This work was produced using a series of thin resin molds and resin pours to slowly build up its translucent surface, resulting in an effect that hovers between painterly and photographic. Langson IMCA’s collection includes five other works by Pashgian spanning the 1960s through 2010s.

Year acquired: 2021

Sometimes I Daydream of Flying Away

multi-dimensional artwork featuring a human wearing painted wings, accompanied by two green parrots, flying over a lawnmower and bird bath

Jay Lynn Gomez (formerly Ramiro Gomez), Sometimes I Daydream of Flying Away , 2019, Acrylic, house paint, and cardboard on canvas, 72 x 96 in. UC Irvine Institute and Museum of California Art, Gift of Robert Hayden III and Richard Silver

Sometimes I Daydream of Flying Away

Jay Lynn Gomez

Sometimes I Daydream of Flying Away (2019)
Gifted by Robert Hayden III and Richard Silver

Jay Lynn Gomez (b. 1986)
This work by Jay Lynn Gomez (formerly Ramiro Gomez) contains themes of landscape, labor, race, and representation. Gomez began making work by painting figures of workers into images in Architectural Digest magazines during her breaks while working as a nanny. Her paintings often highlight unseen workers, in particular, Latinx nannies, gardeners, construction workers, and valets. She reinserts these workers—as cardboard cutout figures—into visual representations of landscapes where they are otherwise frequently omitted.

Gomez continues to work with cutout figures, placing them free standing around her exhibitions and collaging them onto her paintings, as seen in Sometimes I Daydream of Flying Away—a work that reveals the artist’s and subjects’ identities as well as features specific to Southern California. In an interview with Carolina Miranda for the Los Angeles Times Gomez stated, “I’m painting my own mother. I’m painting about my dad. I’m painting about myself.”

Year acquired: 2021

Untitled

print of a black rectangle with soft edges and an empty oval shape in the upper middle of the rectangle

John Paul Jones, Untitled, probably 1962-1963, Lithograph, 11 x 7 in. UC Irvine Institute and Museum of California Art, Gift of Theodore Barnett

Untitled

John Paul Jones

Untitled (probably 1962 – 63)
Gifted by Theodore Barnett

John Paul Jones (1924 – 1999)
Artist and educator John Paul Jones was considered a leading American printmaker during the 1960s. His work has been associated with postwar New Figuration, a period of figurative painting revived in the 1960s by such artists as Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, Philip Gustin, and David Hockney. Jones taught for a decade at UCLA, from 1953 to 1963, where he established the printmaking department, and at UC Irvine for two decades, from 1969 to 1990. Untitled was produced at the Tamarind Lithography Workshop, an important print shop in Los Angeles at the time. Inspired by European artists like Francis Bacon, Alberto Giacometti, and Francisco Goya, shadowy figures emerging from dark backgrounds are a recurring motif in Jones’ work.

Year acquired: 2021