MORE SIGNS OF SIGNAGE AS ART

James Stanford  "Indra’s Jewels"  Light jet Print on Archival Fuji Crystal Paper 48 x 48 I Courtesy of Trifecta Gallery.

James Stanford  
“Indra's Jewels”
Trifecta Gallery
Through March 28, 2014

“Art for Art's Sake"
Selections from the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation.
UNLV Barrick Museum
Closes April 26, 2014.

It’s been interesting seeing how native artists respond to the signage and spectacle of Las Vegas.

Muralist Jerry Misko homage is shifting from realism to abstraction of light; signs as a buddy-like companion now growing into a valued adulthood friendship. Then there’s an artist who made signs an extension of peaceful meditation from a lifetime in the desert, while a younger artist is trying to shake off disorienting childhood nightmares.

Using digital fragments of found Vegas signage, artist Jim Stanford changes color into meditative symmetry with “Indra’s Jewels.” Signs are abandoned jewels of the desert, says the artist, making these new works a regional reflection of growing up with decorative stimuli.  Stanford’s long personal dedication to Buddism is the backstory he likes to feature, as seen in his presentation as a featured speaker for “Pioneer of the Las Vegas Arts District.” In this series, that took five years to complete, his two spiritual sides are reconciled.

In contrast, there is the stunning mural-sized gallery assemblage by Las Vegas born, and now Los Angeles-based, artist Brian Porray. (\DARKHOR5E/) is a highlight in “Arts for Art’s Sake," a frantic psychedelic flashback of the artist’s terrified memories from that lone beam of light spitting out from the Luxor pyramid. In his mind, and now ours, hard angular lines tap into a rhythms of primitive 1980s computer generated graphics  hieroglyphics mixed within wandering lines of aerosol.

Anyone of the Stanford or Porray’s works could be public art to lobby for. If installed at the right site, it would be a direct mirror of manufactured environment.