Art Shack Artist: Elyse Pignolet

Born in Oakland, CA, Elyse Pignolet is an American with Filipino heritage, living and working in Los Angeles. Pignolet works primarily in ceramics and her work has been inspired by and dealt with various themes including social issues and topics from contemporary news articles, as well as urban themes. Her works attempt to place the permanence and traditions of ceramics with the fleeting and transitory nature of the contemporary world. She has created several bodies of work that place the extensive history of ceramics in contrast with the temporary nature of graffiti as a starting point to make hand-built sculptures that draw from the traditional calligraphies of various cultures and the characters, combined with the lettering of contemporary urban writing.

Elyse Pignolet, Rim, 2009

Other artistic projects of hers, including her drawings continue to reference the world around us, dealing with formal concerns of art while blurring the line between figuration and abstraction. Her drawings begin with the deconstruction of city grids, maps, architectural plans, which are reorganized in multilayered semi-abstract compositions.

Elyse Pignolet, Cityscape #3,#4, #5, 2007

Also in the show are two collaboration pieces (Glory and Tire Shop) by Elyse Pignolet and Sandow Birk which are described as a peep holes into an alternate world. To learn more about this piece of the pieces shown above, come check out Laguna Art Museum's Art Shack Exhibition on display until October 3rd.

To learn more about this artist download the FREE Laguna Art Museum iPhone App which includes video interviews with the artists! If you don't have an iPhone of iTouch, you can rent one at the front desk.