Agoura Hills Reflects On 2020 In Virtual Art Show

AGOURA HILLS, CA — "He feels such bodily listlessness and yawning hunger as though he were worn by a long journey or a prolonged fast... Next he glances about and sighs that no one is coming to see him. Constantly in and out of his cell, he looks at the sun as if it were too slow in setting."

Perhaps many Agourans stuck at home for months on end during the pandemic can relate to this description a watercolor painting called "COVID Blues" by local artist Michael Pittas. In the painting, a young man sits on the edge of a cliff, wearing a jester's hat, looking perhaps longingly after seagulls flying into the distance.

Pittas's painting is one of 49 by 29 artists submitted to the Agoura Hills Art Show, a community art show available virtually from Nov. 5 through the end of the year put on by the Agoura Hills Cultural Arts Council and Department of Community Services. According to Community Services Assistant Director Zach Miller, this particular show was intended as a retrospective on one of the most trying years in recent memory.

"We had the idea retrospective of 2020 art show - everyone’s thoughts and feelings towards 2020 as a whole, be it COVID, the death of Kobe, the political environment," Miller said. "We wanted people’s best representations."

The group, which normally puts on three to four different community art shows exhibited at the Agoura Hills/Calabasas Community Center, put out a callout in the spring for artists to submit work under four suggested themes pertaining to this unprecedented year of pandemics, protests, and nonstop politics.

"Community" garnered many Agoura-specific works, like Kathi Coleman's painting of a mountain lion almost poisoned by rodenticides, an egret at Paramount Ranch by June Seeley, to paintings of Ladyface Mountain and Agoura Road by Daniel Hudson. It also attracted 2020-specific works, like a Black Lives Matter collage by Debra Sokolow and a photograph by Joe Longo of two masked flamingos nuzzling together in a cave.

"Life At Home," perhaps the most explicitly 2020-themed category, includes a hectic Pollockesque frenzy of colors called "What Day Is It?" by David Dyell; a scene of crocodiles, pigs, and fish watching TV called "Family Night At Home" by retired Agoura High art teacher Lynn Coleman; a collage of 2020-themed photos of masks and graduations called "March & April 2020" by Joyce Rumack; a jigsaw puzzle depicting feminist heroes honoring the centennial of the 19th Amendment by Mayor Illece Buckley Weber; and leftovers from the more than 700 masks sewn by Councilmember Linda Northrup. Northrup also submitted a wreath made of mask materials she entitled "Your Life Is Worth My Time."

The "World View" category includes two ambiguous clay sculptures by Gabriella Hoffman called "CoronaMan", a poem called "America My Beloved" by John Zicari, a collage by Debra Sokolow called "Alone Together C-19 Vertical Consciousness," and a painting by Kathi Coleman of the Statue of Liberty wearing a crown of thorns and crying, with smoke billowing out of her torch, called "Liberty's Innocence, Crucified By Criminals."

The "Equality" category features a photo by Karen Kent of a doll of the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg standing next to a pocket-sized Constitution and a "Vote" pin; and two drawings by Taryn Liu of suffragettes and a "suffrage cat."

Finally, in "Silver Linings," a sprout crawls out of desecrated landscape in a painting by Ella Gates, family fun and togetherness endures, and perhaps grows, in Cooper Glynn's "Because of COVID" collage, and eagles circle a pond in Helane Freeman's "Morning Takes Flight."

These are but a few examples of the outpouring of creative expression coming from a group of artists Miller said are mostly residents of Agoura Hills. In order to create a more interactive experience, the curation team transformed each painting into a Vimeo clip zooming in and around each work as music plays in the background.

"We were trying to make these pieces not so stagnant, we wanted make them more dynamic," said Miller. "We put music behind them to make people feeling like they were at an art show participating."

The Cultural Arts Council will feature a Teen Arts Show next April or May. But in the meantime, take some time to enjoy 2020 through the eyes of Agoura Hills.