July 13 - August 24, 2014

The Outlanders 

Sarah Conaway, Pearl C. Hsiung, Kim Fisher, Shana Lutker, Florian Morlat, Jon Pestoni, Mungo Thomson, Mary Weatherford

The Pit’s inaugural exhibition takes inspiration from our immediate surroundings and the artists who run studios in this area. Artists have always searched the fringes of metropolitan areas for larger spaces and lower rent in order to work. The accessibility of larger spaces is one of the great benefactors to artists working in the Los Angeles region. Los Angeles is sprawling, isolated, and connected all at once. Los Angeles provides access to unique landscapes, quality of light, and industries. San Fernando Road is a microcosm of LA life. The region is filled with movie prop houses, and fabricators. It is sandwiched between the beautiful Verdugo Hills and Griffith Park and runs along the LA River. It is peppered with some of the most unique local businesses and restaurants, and littered with long stretches of industrial yards, train tracks, and sun bleached warehouses. It is also home to some of the most interesting art studios running from Burbank to Highland Park. The Pit’s first exhibition brings together eight of these artists.

It is impossible to say that any type of art is “uniquely LA” or “typical of LA” because all types of artists reside here with such diverse practices. However, it can be said that the artists in The Outlanders make work with aesthetic references and influences that are part of LA’s history, geography, and reputation.

All the artists incorporate aspects of LA culture and living into their practices (as can be said about probably every artist working in this city); from Kim Fisher’s compositions with nuanced slivers of images pulled from fashion magazines, to Pearl C. Hsiung’s psychedelic musings on nature, to Mary Weatherford’s swirling and electric paintings that investigate the artist’s relationship to locations and light quality found in the county. The artists in The Outlanders all create work that is part of LA living, LA’s history, and LA art.

An exhibition zine will be published in an edition of 200 for The Outlanders and available at the opening or online for $10.00. The Outlanders will be on view from July 13th until August 24th. An opening reception will be held on Sunday July 13th from 3-7pm with vegan food and beer.