At the intersection of artist Amy Adler’s play with shapes, color and landscape is her new mural “Location,” installed March 26 on the Kline Street-facing side of 7661 Girard Ave.
The latest project by Murals of La Jolla, “Location” is one of a series of five playgrounds originally drawn in oil pastel on canvas.
This image is based on a photograph Adler shot of a playground while scouting locations for a film.
Adler, professor in the UC San Diego Visual Arts Department where she has taught since 2004, made the original paintings life-sized, noting the mural is nearly identical in scale. “You [can] stand in front of it and feel like you were standing in front of a playground.”
The playground will seem familiar, Adler said, as many such structures have similar modular components. On closer look, however, each “one is completely unique and individual.”
The mural “has a depth and nuanced quality, unlike anything we’ve seen in murals previously commissioned for the project,” said Murals of La Jolla Executive Director Lynda Forsha.
“Her work is cross-disciplinary, straddling photography, drawing and film, and this beguiling image was drawn at a life-size scale,” Forsha added.
The location of the mural, opposite the playground of Stella Maris Academy, makes the piece extra special to Adler: “There’ll be a flow of young kids going by and families.”
Forsha agreed, hoping that the image in the context of the adjacent school’s campus will prompt the students’ “conversations, stories, and performative responses.”
As “Location” is based on a photograph taken at night, “the heightened color palette, full moon and empty playground set the stage for where a variety of narratives might occur,” Forsha said.
“I think viewers will engage with this mural in a participatory way, imagining what might or could occur.”
That is Adler’s hope as well; her works typically feature human subjects and the “Location” series is the first time in her decades-long career she has created imagery without figures.
Adler encourages the viewer to gaze at the empty playground and answer “Where would some of these people be?”
“It’s really hard to look at a playground without populating it yourself,” she said. “So, it’s empty, but it’s not really empty. It’s a space of imagination.”
Murals of La Jolla commissions public art pieces on private property in La Jolla, originally founded by the La Jolla Community Foundation and now a project of the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library.
There are currently 15 murals on view.
Artists are chosen by the Murals of La Jolla Art Advisory Committee, which is composed of the heads of the major local visual arts organizations. Each work is on display for a minimum of two years and is funded by private donations.
“The artists that have participated in Murals of La Jolla are exceptional,” Adler said. “I feel very honored and appreciative to be included.”
Murals of La Jolla is currently working to realize a new mural at the Empress Hotel and will continue its Artist Talk series at the Athenaeum with Victoria Fu at 6 p.m. Sunday, April 7 and Amy Adler at 6 p.m. Thursday, May 23.
