"Borrowed Landscape" (curated by Nikko Mueller)

Joshua Aster, Kristin Calabrese, Victoria Fu, Eben Goff, Keaton Macon, Hillary Mushkin, Scott Polack, Eva Struble, and Devon Tsuno

"Borrowed Landscape" is a translation of the term Shakkei in Japanese. Sometimes referred to as ‘borrowed scenery’ but translating more accurately as “captured alive’, this principle of garden design involves incorporating the surrounding landscape through almost diorama like emulation and through carefully considered framing. Views of the surrounding landscape are carefully framed by elements within the garden and by architectural forms. These framed views are derived from the traditions of landscape painting, and incorporate manipulations of scale such as forced perspective, and representation of surrounding topographies. The result is a hybrid of the natural and the contrived.

The works in "Borrowed Landscape" revolve around landscape as a form, tradition, and conceptual space. As a whole, these artists’ practices deploy the forms, tropes and language of landscape as they mine its foundation, thus the substrate that underlies the ground we stand on is exposed, excavated, and analyzed. To varying degrees they question our perception of our environment and our underlying assumptions. Natural processes become artistic processes: the landscape becomes a system of production, distribution, creation and destruction.

Josh Astor's paintings derive systems of abstraction from natural objects, found in the landscape and painted en plein air. An inherent topography reasserts itself in a painting by Kristin Calabrese of a sink hole in a city street. Eva Struble's landscape based paintings result from investigations into the politics, ecology, and economy of the landscapes that surround her. Drawings, ephemera, and documents are presented from Hillary Mushkin's Incendiary traces project. Incendiary Traces explores charged landmarks in southern California through interdisciplinary and collaborative “draw-ins”, research, and discussion.

Victoria Fu is providing photographic works that evoke the Luminist's landscapes in their vibrant fields of color, while also exploring and destabilizing the frame and the digital spaces of the post-physical landscape. Eben Goff’s Flood Cubes collect debris washed into the LA River channel, crating condensations of the physical environment through quasi-natural processes. Scott Polach's photographic and video works explore the landscape ecologically, often through performances or installations in situ, especially focusing on water issues and the bio-politics of invasive species. Keaton Macon’s installation of graphite drawings, charred remnants, and sound create a fragmentary landscape of transformation.

Boehm Gallery

Palomar College 

1140 West Mission Road

San Marcos, CA 92609 

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