As Big as All Outdoors

A world of larger-than-life indoor murals leaps out from the gallery walls at the Irvine Fine Arts Center. Nine artists have transformed its ho-hum white interiors into a kaleidoscope of colors and pictures.

Most are participating in the massive L.A. International Biennial Art Invitational, a collaboration of 60 galleries and artists from 25 countries July 18.

In the meantime, the arts center will host “Mural II,” a preview of the biennial art invitational that includes two performance pieces: sculpture “implosions” and an experimental film project. The show, which opened Saturday, was made possible by a $12,000 grant from the Mondrian Foundation in the Netherlands and other European sponsors.

“I think this is a good opportunity for people to be immersed in art by artists from different cultures,” said the center’s exhibitions curator, Carl Berg. “It’s something for people to see that is outside of the norm.”

The nine site-specific murals loom as high as 11 feet and as wide as 35 feet.

“The views people get are like windows to different environments,” Berg said.

Korean-born artist Kyungmi Shin has created a piece she calls “Blue Wall Paper.” Using copies of six photos, including images of Superman, she repeats the set until a pattern forms.

“It’s unusual wallpaper,” the 37-year-old Los Angeles resident said. The work complements her “Blue Eyes” project for the biennial, in which she photographs mixed-race subjects and colors their eyes blue.

“It’s sort of a lowly form of murals,” Shin said of her superhero creation. “Wallpaper has the stigma of being very domestic. But it’s like poetry in our everyday lives. And to me, the color blue, like on Superman, is very American.”

She was inspired to make her patterns of images after the death of the Princess of Wales. “When Princess Diana died I was fascinated by the media coverage that seemed to wallpaper us with images of her as a saint.”

*

Shin and the other artists have painstakingly etched, drawn, cut, pasted and painted onto these enormous spaces for days--they have after-hours access to the center and visitors are invited to watch them work.

“If I make the art on the spot, people can see how it is made and I can communicate with people,” Dutch artist Erik Odijk said.

At the arts center, he has drawn in detail what looks like an entire primeval forest in a matter of a couple of weeks. The mural, titled “Tiveden,” was inspired by a hiking trip in Sweden.

“I like the idea of bringing the outdoor murals indoors, especially since most of my work is black and white charcoal or chalk pastels on paper that doesn’t survive well outdoors,” said Odijk, 42.

A novice to the large mural format, Swedish painter Johan Nobell is racing to complete his first. He trimmed and cut tracing paper against the wall for his piece “Cut and Paste Landscape.” Nobell typically works on paintings of post-industrial landscapes that aren’t much bigger than 12 inches. Already, spurts of vibrant colors dance across the paper.

“It’s interesting and challenging artistically,” said Nobell, 34, of Stockholm. “I have no experience with murals.”

*

Two other concurrent shows will take place at the arts center. Dutch-German artist Ewerdt Hilgemann’s “Imploded Sculptures” are randomly shaped, geometric, stainless-steel sculptures created from an implosion that buckles the metal.

In “Oil,” Dutch artist Erik Wesselo has filmed a 30-minute video of 1,700 boxes filled with 20,400 bottles of oil moving through space. An artist-in-residence at the International Studio Program in New York, Wesselo’s film captures people positioning the boxes from one end of the space to the other in what appears to be a never-ending process. The continuous repetition of movement directs the viewer’s attention to other details, such as the rhythm and tension they develop while moving in concert with one another.

It’s all a warmup for the big exhibit in L.A.

“I’m hoping the show will grow an audience in Orange County,” Shin said, “so the art can be appreciated more and people may even make the trip out to the biennial.”

* Three concurrent exhibits, “Murals II,” “Imploded Sculptures” and “Oil,” at the Irvine Fine Arts Center, 14321 Yale Ave. Mondays-Thursdays, 9 a.m.-9 p.m; Fridays, 9 a.m.-5 p.m.; Saturdays, 9 a.m.-3 p.m.; Sundays, 1-5 p.m. Free. “Oil” ends July 29; “Murals II” and “Imploded Sculpture” end Aug. 26. (949) 724-6880.