The mission of the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture is to advance arts, culture, and creativity throughout LA County. We fulfill our mission by providing services and support in areas including grants and technical assistance for nonprofit organizations; professional development opportunities; commissioning civic artworks and managing the County’s civic art collection; implementing countywide arts education initiatives; research and evaluation; career pathways in the creative economy; free community programs; and cross sector creative strategies that address civic issues. This work is framed by the County’s Cultural Equity and Inclusion Initiative and a longstanding commitment to fostering access to the arts.
Building upon the Medical Center’s burgeoning art collection, Civic Art program staff initiated an art purchase program. A curatorial approach was crafted to include both existing and commissioned for purchase. Christine Nguyen, David Hicks and Joe Zaldivar were the three artists selected for the art purchase program.
Christine Nguyen’s Where the Sea and Cosmos Meet draws upon the imagery of science and technologies of the present. Nguyen has been developing a personal cosmology in which commonalities among species, forms, and environment become visible and expressive, suggesting past narratives and possible futures. This photograph imagines that the depths of the ocean can reach into outer space. In her words, "The forms and environs in my work sometimes migrate into new pieces, establishing new systems. These systems imagine modes of transportation, communication, and regeneration. There are no waste materials in these worlds: vision is a renewable resource."
About the Artist:
As a native Californian, Christine Nguyen has always had an affinity for the ocean, nature and wildlife. Growing up with her father, who was a fisherman, she was able to develop a natural curiosity for science. She writes, "My work draws upon the imagery of science, but it is not limited to the technologies of the present. I imagine that the depths of the ocean reach into outer space, that through an organic prism, vision can fluctuate between the micro- and macroscopic." Nguyen received her B.F.A from Cal State Long Beach and M.F.A from the University of California-Irvine. Her exhibitions include solo shows at the UCLA Hammer Museum in Westwood, Bergamot Station in Santa Monica, galleries in Long Beach, San Pedro, New York, San Francisco, Germany, and Hong Kong. Nguyen currently works as a photographer for the J. Paul Getty Museum while developing her public art practice.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)