LOS ANGELES.- Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA), in partnership with the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, announces a new exhibit on display at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) featuring neon artworks by Los Angeles-based artist Lili Lakich.

The exhibit is located in the Customs Area of the Tom Bradley International Terminal on the arrivals level and is on view for ticketed passengers. The exhibit is free and on display through December 31, 2008.

Serving as guest curator, Lakich, known for her large-scale neon sculptures, selected 14 smaller artworks, including works from her "Flaming Hearts," "Reel Art," and "Argon Lovers" series. Combining aluminum cutouts of human figures and profiles with glass tubes filled with neon or argon gases, Lakich's sculptures glow and appear to almost float against the wall. Many of these neon artworks incorporate found objects such as film reels, bicycle, motorcycle and car parts, keys, drawer pulls, locks, and gears. "Creating these smaller sculptures involves a spontaneity that I am not able to bring to my larger works, which necessitate extensive planning," said Lakich.

Lakich discovered neon as a student at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, in the mid 1960s. "When I discovered that neon was essentially drawing with light, I was hooked on the unexplored possibilities of neon as fine art rather than as signs," said Lakich. Since 1981, Lakich has cut forms out of various metals and re-composed them in bas-relief using the neon to paint on both the reflective ground of the metal surfaces and on the wall to which the sculpture is mounted, thereby creating the illusion of the artwork floating.

Lakich is also involved in two other projects with LAWA. In 2006, Lakich was commissioned by LAWA to create a neon sculpture for the LAX FlyAway bus terminal in Van Nuys, which operates a bus service to and from LAX. The two-sided, complex sculpture will measure 114 feet long, the largest neon sculpture that Lakich has created. It is slated to be installed in mid-January 2009.

For one of its five Remote Terminals on the west side of LAX, LAWA purchased Lakich's "Helios," a three-dimensional neon sculpture inspired by Chinese opera masks that the artist saw while visiting Beijing in the late 1980s. The sculpture was installed in August 2008, and will remain on view in Remote Terminal Gate 210 for ticketed passengers.

Neon gas was discovered in 1898 by British scientists William Ramsay and Morris W. Travers. French engineer Georges Claude developed the first lamp from an electrified tube of neon gas in 1910. In 1923, Claude introduced neon signs to the United States; the Packard car dealership in Los Angeles purchased one of the first neon signs installed in the U.S.

The purpose of the Art Exhibits Program at LAX and LA/Ontario International Airport (ONT) is to educate and entertain the traveling public, while emphasizing a cultural experience highlighting what makes Los Angeles unique and interesting.

Exhibits may be historic, popular, artistic, or graphic design in nature and may arise from museums, fine art, archives, environment, or other fields. Exhibits are on display in Terminals 1, 2, 3 and Tom Bradley International Terminal at LAX, and Terminals 2 and 4 at LA/Ontario.