Photos Courtesy of Ty Pownall
Sculpting professor Ty Pownall claims to have a special connection with nature. He has his third solo exhibition running at the DAC Gallery in Downtown Los Angeles, which portrays human interactions with the natural world.
Pownall grew up in Thousand Oaks, and he did not immediately come to work in Malibu. He attended Abilene Christian University (‘06) where he was undeclared until his junior year when he decided to be a Graphic Design and Advertising major. However, he quickly learned the downsides of the advertising world.
“Having any pollution at all in my art made me nauseous,” Pownall said.
For that reason, Pownall said he decided do art for himself. He went on to receive a master’s degree at Claremont Graduate University and then became an adjunct professor at Pepperdine for six years before committing full time.
With a painter as a mother and a mediator as a father, Pownall said he experienced a very open and out-of-the-box upbringing.
“Art is not just about making pretty things to put up on your wall,” Pownall said. “Art forces people to think for themselves.”
Pownall said his parents encouraged him to make up his own concepts, which he has continued to do through art. He hopes to instill the same initiative in his students.
Pownall said he reads and educates himself before going to the studio to artistically filter out the problems of this world.
“I think my subconscious is far smarter than my conscience,” Pownall said when describing how he produces his art.
While his art can highlight several different aspects of environmental, political and social issues, Pownall said most of his current exhibition represents human tendency and its tension with nature.
“I think it is interesting the way that humans interact with the landscape and the natural world,” Pownall said. “I do think my art focuses on the reality that we make the landscape yield to our needs.”
This is how Pownall feels about one wall piece. Pownall said for this work, he put a wire on the ground and poured plaster over the top to form natural waves and bumps. Then he created his own topographical contour lines that did not align with the plaster curvature.
He said nature humbles him daily, and he sees how human tendency is to “conquer and manicure the landscape to fit our needs.” This wall piece is his tool for looking at the relationship between the natural world and human needs, Pownall said.
In addition to his five featured pieces, there is a large steel structure that grabs spectators’ attention.
This non-traditional piece is an 8-foot-long steel “spikey” structure that is topped with loose sand in one area, causing “direct consequences if someone were to bump into it.”
“I just wanted to create an object that forced people to be aware of their surroundings,” Pownall said.
Through certain materials he uses, he can “amp up how delicate a structure is or how unbalanced it may feel as if it is on the verge of teetering,” Pownall said. “The inspiration has presented itself to me in a clear way in terms of the way we handle nature.”
Pownall said his art is a visual representation to talk about broader problems such as the fragility of nature in our human-made world.
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Follow Ashlie Benson on Twitter: @Ashlie_Corina
