Lost, Found, Assembled

MESSAGES IN DRIFTWOOD: For many years, assemblage artist Laura Lynch lived near the Miramar Hotel. Every morning she walked her dog along the beach, and each time she came home with a new find: a rusty crab trap, a barnacle-crusted porthole, a piece of frayed rope. “For a long time, I didn’t know what I was going to do with all of it,” she said recently. Today, her Westside studio is filled with sculptural works that incorporate the treasures she salvaged from the sea. An oil-coated panel from a boat’s hull has been cut in thirds and made into a triptych storyboard. In one segment, a black-and-white photograph of an oil rig emerges from the dark stickiness. Nearby, Lynch has collaged a cormorant and a lifesaver against an image of the Santa Barbara coastline.

Lynch thinks of these pieces collectively as her Pacific Series, and each work in the series carries its own message about the environment. One piece incorporates bits of surfboards, float, and buoys, and colorful plastic shells from ammunition—Lynch’s response to the culling of feral pigs on Santa Cruz Island. Another, “Fair Game,” includes deer antlers, rifles, and gun club emblems in a commentary on the killing of deer in Point Reyes, California.

In many of these works, Lynch juxtaposes the past and the present, reflecting on where we have come and hinting at where we might be going. A charred menu from Moby Dick restaurant salvaged after the Santa Barbara wharf burned finds a new home alongside cartoon images of Captain Ahab and photos of modern Japanese whalers and harpoon ships.