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Press Release:
LAUNA BACON, Entangle, corner of 4th and Spring Street Downtown Los Angeles, Opening: Saturday, May 8th 7-10pm.

Utilizing a vacant ground-floor commercial space in the bank district of downtown Los Angeles, artist Launa Bacon introduces us to her latest installation piece. This is the second downtown location Ms. Bacon has converted into her own vision. The web matrix was inspired by the beautiful sights encountered during recent travels in Mexico. In her self-guided road trip throughout the country, Bacon was mesmerized by fields of dewdropped webs cast among waist-high blades of grass, glistening in the dawn sun. Bacon's man-made interpretation of these webs are an attempt to recreate or capture this sight. Constructed with yarn meticulously coated with a sticky epoxy compound, the large delicate webs are cast from wall to wall, and from column to column, transforming the industrial interior with magnificent draping, webs. Like all well made webs, these are no exception, capturing the interest and responses from passersby and friends as Bacon worked into the night weaving and painting. From the regular audience on the street, came the overriding response of ­ where is the spider? The installation piece became very much about the process and the space, with the webs expanding to intricate shadow paintings on the walls in which Bacon has included the faces of those people and friends who were spectators or involved in her life when she was working on the project. And the spider: As Bacon spent every evening spinning her webs, the story of Arachne came about, inspiring a beautiful nod to the Greek goddess. A web woven with a paint brush into a wall mural reveals the face of Arachne, appearing out of the maze of lines only after a second or third pass by the viewer. The Greek myth of the earth's first spider is from Ovid's Metamorphoses: Arachne was fortunate enough to have been blessed with a rare skill in weaving. So clever was she that not only ordinary country folk flocked to see her work, but nymphs from woodland and river came to watch in amazement at how deftly she wove and what wonderful creations came from her needle. Sparking jealousy from Athena, she was cast into a spider, cursed to spin forever. No matter how delicate and beautiful her work is, it will only arouse horror and disgust in mankind and will only be swept away. Although it is impossible to recreate the natural beauty that was cast by tiny spiders in the fields of Mexico, Launa Bacon has, amongst beams and rafters of an industrial interior which serve as her field of grass, responded to her given environment by creating a matrix of lithe, hammock-like webs of entangled yarn in place of spun silk and manipulated lighting to effect the beauty and drama of sunlit dew. Incorporated into the installation of webs, wall paintings and cocooned sculpture add to a highly successful and surreal installation sharing with the viewer the artist's interpretation of Arachne's beautiful creations.

Lisa Wells