VENICE, CA.- For the gallery’s latest Rogue Wave Project exhibition, L.A. Louver is presenting new photography and sculpture by the Los Angeles-based artist Sean Higgins.

For his photographic edition works, Higgins seams together multiple views of real landscapes to create imaginary terrains. A form of digital cubism, in each of his compressed images, Higgins conjures the experience of moving through and existing within the landscape.

New ceramic sculptures are also inspired by landscape: specifically the volcanos of the Cascade mountain range and certain geological oddities of the West. Referencing US Geological Survey public domain data, the artist casts the forms in porcelain, then glazes them in a range of palettes and degrees of opacity. These sculptures are intended to be semi-functional: a volcano may resolve itself in an aperture, turning the sculpture into a vase. Evoking both the power and fragility of the landscape of which they are inspired, Higgins invites us to viscerally engage with the objects.

"I want to blur the line of believability. I hope to convince you that a place is real, but somewhere in your mind you sense that it is not quite. That psychic space is most interesting to me. I aim to show you what is over the next hill, while also showing you where you stand. I want you to see all sides at once, like remembering moving across the land.” — Sean Higgins

Higgins' merging of both microscopic and grand vistas results in a disruption of scale, where time and space is ambiguous and the viewer enters the realm of the uncanny. Using all archival materials Higgins prints his collaged digital photographs (41 x 28 inches) in inkjet on 100% rag paper, in small editions of 3.

Several new ceramic sculptures accompany the photographs and are also inspired by landscape: specifically the volcanos of the Cascade mountain range and certain geological oddities of the West. Higgins begins these objects with US Geological Survey public domain data, which he manipulates and shapes into digital vessel form, and through a process of 3D modeling casts in porcelain. He then glazes the forms in a range of palette and degree of opacity: either coating the entire surfaces, or using it to articulate geological form in contrast to unglazed vessel bodies. These sculptures are intended to be semi-functional: a volcano may resolve itself in an aperture, turning the sculpture into a vase; a glistening lake of irregular form becomes a platter on which food can be served. Evoking both the power and fragility of the landscape of which they are inspired, Higgins invites us to viscerally engage with the objects.

Sean Higgins graduated with a MFA from the University of Pennsylvania in 1998. He has had solo shows at sixspace, Los Angeles; Ambach and Rice, Seattle, and Collette Blanchard Gallery, New York. Group show highlights include the traveling exhibition Alptraum! Photography in the Digital Age at the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle; New Times Roman at Texan Equities, and Salon No. 3 and No. 7 at Marine Contemporary, Los Angeles. Higgins’ photography-based works were previously presented at L.A. Louver in the group exhibition Rogue Wave ’05, Summer 2005.