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Project Arts

Station Architecture Art Program

As part of the Purple (D Line) Extension project, the Metro Art Department selects artists to develop unique artworks for each of the future subway stations. The City of Beverly Hills – Arts & Cultural Commission is involved in the artist selection process for the two stations within the City. Please visit Metro’s Purple (D Line) Extension Art Program website for more information on the program.

Wilshire/La Cienega Station

The following artists are commissioned to work on the station entrance and platform:

  • Todd Gray is a contemporary artist who lives and works in Los Angeles. He specializes in photography, performance, and sculptures. His work aims to reflect challenges on the issues of race, class, gender, and colonialism. His work will be displayed at the La Cienega Station entrance.
  • Soo Kim is a Korean-American artist who lives in Los Angeles. She is on the faculty at Otis College of Art and Design. She specializes in photography. Her work is in the public collection of The J. Paul Getty Museum collection, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and more. Her work will be displayed on the La Cienega Station platform. You can see more of Soo Kim's work in progress on Metro's blog.
  • Mariana Castillo Deball studied at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, and currently works in Germany. She is an artist specializing in visual installations, sculpture, photography, and drawings. She incorporates found materials in a way to reveal hidden connections and meanings. Her work will be displayed on the La Cienega Station concourse level. You can see more of Mariana Castillo Deball's plans for the La Cienega concourse art on Metro's blog.

Wilshire/Rodeo Station

The following artists are commissioned to work on the station entrance and platform.

  • Meleko Mokgosi is an artist, Associate Professor at the Yale School of Art, and co-founder of the Interdisciplinary Art and Theory Program in Ne York City. His large-scale paintings use history painting and cinematic tropes to highlight political themes is African history.
  • Rigo 23 is an artist whose work has been exhibited internationally for over 20 years. His paintings, murals, tile work, and sculptures are meant to encourage public discussion about one's relationship in the community, role in public policy, and place on the planet. 
  • Devon Tsuno is an artist, co/director and founder of the PRAXIS program at California State University , Dominguez Hills (CSUDH), and an Assistant Professor at CSUDH. He specializes in spray paint and acrylic paintings that highlight Japanese American history within Southern California. 

For their upcoming work, visit the Metro Art website for the Purple (D) Line Extension Transit Project.

Meet the Artist Events and Activities 

As the newly commissioned artists for the Wilshire/Rodeo Station begin working on their artwork, exciting events are being planned. Metro is currently planning future Meet-the-Artist events and activities hosted for the public. Past events and activities have included meeting the artists, gaining a better understanding of the artistic process and inspiration for their work, learning about the neighborhood and its assets, and getting a behind-the-scenes look at the site-specific artwork for the station. 

Stay tuned for updates about future meet the artist events. You can also visit the Metro Art website

 

North Canon Drive Closure and Mural

canon opening

Members of City Council, Next Beverly Hills, and the Arts and Culture Commission join artist Tomokazu Matsuyama in unveiling the mural Thousand Regards/Shape of Color on North Canon Drive.

 

In September 2019, in response to community feedback and to help lessen the impacts of Metro Purple (D Line) Extension project construction, North Canon Drive was closed at Wilshire Boulevard. The Metro contractor installed a 20-foot wall across North Canon to reduce construction and traffic impacts to businesses. The street transformed to a pedestrian-friendly cul-de-sac with new street furnishings and a public art installation on the wall.

Beverly Hills City Council approved the closure of North Canon and the installation of the wall for a minimum of two years. On June 6, 2023 the item will return to City Council to consider reopening North Canon or extending the closure through construction completion, which is slated for late 2025.

The City of Beverly Hills selected artist, Tomokazu Matsuyama, to beautify this structure along the north side of the dividing wall with his own exclusive mural. Taking inspiration from Japanese art from the Edo and Meji eras, classical Greek and Roman statuary, French Renaissance painting, postwar contemporary art and the visual language of global popular culture, Tomokazu created the 80 foot tall and 20 foot wide art piece entitled, “Thousand Regards / Shape of Color.” With its vibrant colors and beautiful imagery of birds and sunsets, the Cañon Mural evokes happiness and sets forth a vision of positivity for the future of Beverly Hills. The mural was unveiled in January 2020.

 

 

About the Artist

Canon mural with Artist

Artist Tomokazu Matsuyama stands in front of his mural Thousand Regards/Shape of Color on North Canon Drive.

 

Tomokazu Matsuyama is a Japanese contemporary artist who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. His work responds to his own bi-cultural experience of growing up between Japan and America by bringing together aspects of both Eastern and Western aesthetic systems. His practice repositions traditional icons within a broader global context to create a distinctive style that resists cultural categorization and embodies what he refers to as the "struggle of reckoning the familiar local with the familiar global."

Matsuyama's important exhibitions include the Japan Society, New York; Harvard University, Massachusetts; the Katzen Arts Center at American University Museum, Washington, D.C.; and Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia; among other galleries and institutions. His works are also in the permanent collections of LACMA; Asian Art Museum, San Francisco; the Royal Family, Bank of Sharjah Collection, Dubai; Microsoft Collection, and more.

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