Karla Klarin

American, b. 1953

Echo Park at Night
1983

Foam-cor, newsprint, and acrylic
37 x 95.75 x 8 in. (93.98 x 243.205 x 20.32 cm)
Gift of Joe Austin and the Kathryn C. Wanlass Foundation
2013.6

Echo Park at Night is part of Klarin’s lifelong study of Los Angeles. Fascinated by its constant state of change, Klarin describes Los Angeles as “a city of moving parts that exists within a geometry of impressive expanse and beauty.” This definition is seen within the piece itself as Klarin captures a realistic moment, while allowing the viewer to individually interpret the more abstract passages within the construction. “It is within my paintings that I store my LA memories.”

Karla Klarin grew up visiting museums in Italy and France with an interest in art. She enrolled at San Francisco Art Institute initially focused on photography until seeing the work of painters Richard Diebenkorn and then Sam Tchakalian, who focused on abstraction and color. After receiving her BFA in Painting at the San Francisco Art Institute in 1974, Klarin went on to pursue her MFA at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles. From there, her work appeared in solo and group exhibitions across California, including at the University of Redlands, Irvine Fine Arts Center, and the University of Southern California, Los Angeles.

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This object has the following keywords:

• bodies of water - Natural depressions or courses in the earth's surface that are filled with water, including seas, lakes, and rivers.
• California
• cities - Distinctions among villages, towns, and cities are relative and vary according to their individual regional contexts. Generally, cities designate large or important communities with population, status, and internal complexity greater than most towns in the region.
• city
• cityscapes - Refers to creative works that depict settlements that may be considered cities, which are large or important communities with population, status, and internal complexity greater than most towns in the region. For creative works depicting towns, use "townscapes (representations)."
• night - The period between sunset and sunrise, especially the hours of darkness.
• Papier-mâché
• relief - Use to describe a surface that has been carved, molded, or stamped so that an image or design projects from or is sunk into a continuous surface.
• tree
• trees - Woody, perennial plants usually with a single, long, self-supporting stem or trunk, and which grow to a considerable height.
• water - A liquid made up of molecules of hydrogen and oxygen (HO2). When pure, it is colorless, tasteless, and odorless. It exists in gaseous, liquid, and solid forms; it is liquid at room temperature. It is the liquid of which seas, lakes, and rivers are composed, and which falls as rain. Water is one of the most plentiful and essential of compounds. It is vital to life, participating in virtually every process that occurs in plants and animals. One of its most important properties is its ability to dissolve many other substances. The versatility of water as a solvent is essential to living organisms. The term "water" is typically used to refer to the liquid form of this compound; for the solid or gaseous forms, use "ice" or "water vapor."

This object was included in the following exhibitions:

• Looking Backward & Forward , 1/29/2022 - 5/5/2023

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