Press Release | download PDFMeg Cranston: Emerald City LA><ART Gallery One March 2 – April 20, 2013 Opening Reception: Saturday, March 2nd from 6-8pm High fashion beams industrial perfection and this year’s lodestar is emerald. For her March 2013 exhibition at LA><ART artist Meg Cranston explores the development of emerald as a global phenomenon. When in May of last year Kate Middleton strode onto a red carpet wearing an emerald pleated gown by designer Jenny Packham, the Duchess and fashion icon ensured emerald was to become the ne plus ultra of design in the coming months.
Advertisements celebrate it as “a lively, radiant, lush green” on the official color assortment company’s website. Emerald has since been announced as the official hue of 2013, available as kitchen and household wares, retro chandeliers, school supplies and stationary, flannel shirts, head scarfs, upholstery, shag rugs, smart phone cases and screen savers, interior paints and exterior trims, silk trousers, May birthstone tiaras, evening gowns and five-carat rings.
It was Baudelaire who noted that humanity seeks its deepest sense of self-worth in fashion. This would have a great impact on future painting in that fashion increasingly co-opted the autonomy of fine art. In haute couture we increasingly ‘imprint our own image within attire’ that ‘crumples or stiffens in a dress, rounds off or squares gestures, and even ends by subtly penetrating the very features of ones face,’ the poet observed. Modern life, in other words, is defined by the speed with which ideals can be imprinted in the prevailing fashions of the moment. The quicker these ideals become redundant, the more modern the world may seem to be. With each new season, the most elegant, stylish and debonair overcome the coarseness of a démodé world. This year, emerald embodies the eclipse.
Meg Cranston explores these historic yet always-evolving relationships between the beau monde and visual art with a new series of monochromes and painterly reflections on emerald.
Meg Cranston is acting Chair of the Fine Arts Department at Otis College, where she has been a member of faculty for over twenty years. Cranston has been awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, J. Paul Getty Community Foundation Artist Grant, Architectural Foundation of American Art in Public Places Award, and a COLA Artist Grant. Cranston’s most recent exhibition includes “Keep It Simple. Keep It Fresh,” made in collaboration with John Baldessari presented at Galerie Michael Janssen, Singapore. She was included in Made in LA 2012, at the Hammer Museum in collaboration with LA><ART. She is represented by Galerie Michael Janssen, Berlin. Cranston received her MFA from California Institute of the Arts and her BA from Kenyon College.
ABOUT LA><ART Founded in 2005, LA><ART is a leading independent nonprofit contemporary art space in Los Angeles, committed to the production of experimental exhibitions and public art initiatives. Responding to Los Angeles’ cultural climate, LA><ART produces and presents new work for all audiences and offers the public access to the next generation of artists and curators. LA><ART supports challenging work, reflecting the diversity of the city and stimulates conversations on contemporary art in Los Angeles, fostering dynamic relationships between art, artists and their audiences. Since 2005, LA><ART has produced and commissioned over 200 exhibitions, public initiatives, and projects. In 2014, LA><ART will launch its Vision Campaign including The Occasional – a city wide exhibition and public art initiative. This platform for LA continues the organization’s ongoing commitment to supporting artistic and curatorial freedom while focusing on commissioning new work in experimental contexts. LA><ART’s programs are made possible with the generous support of Brenda Potter, the Pasadena Art Alliance, Rosette Delug, Mark Fletcher, Fred Fisher, Mark Goldstein, Ron Handler, Jennifer Hawks, Bettina Korek, Candace Nelson, Peter Remes, Adam Singer, Lisa Schiff, Foam Magazine, Los Angeles Confidential Magazine, Art Production Fund, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The National Endowment for the Arts, The Los Angeles County Arts Commission, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and The City of Los Angeles’ Department of Cultural Affairs. Special thanks to Sima Familant, Amy Drezner and Ray Reveles at ‘Reverse Modeling’, Montclair, CA. 
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