Crescenta Recreation is a large mural that faces a large, grassy area surrounded by an oak grove on the rear wall of an outdoor kitchen building at Crescenta Valley Community Regional Park. Artist Aaron Morse gathered color ideas from the immediate surroundings including the bark and shadows from the oak trees, hillside vegetation, and nearby mountains. The colors are antique bronze, olive, and warm grey, and the line work is like a chalkboard drawing or photo negative. Activities shown or suggested are part of the park menu: baseball, basketball, dog park, fitness course, flag football, cheerleading, skate park, and picnic area. Figures are generalized but not generic, showing reduced detail upon a graphic structure inspired by athletes' depictions on ceramics from Ancient Greece.
Aaron Morse was born in 1974 in Tucson, Arizona, and lives and works in Los Angeles. He received his BFA in 1996 from the University of Arizona, Tucson, and MFA in 1998 from the University of Cincinnati, OH. His work is included in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and the Museum of Modern Art, New York and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; among others. Solo exhibitions include those at ACME., Los Angeles (2003, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014 and 2016); Guild and Greyshkul, New York (2006, 2008); and the Hammer Museum of Art, University of California, Los Angeles (2008). Morse’s work has also been included in group exhibitions at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art (2010 and 2016); the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston (2008); the Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, California (2004); the Weatherspoon Art Museum, University of North Carolina, Greensboro (2004 and 2012); and the Hammer Museum of Art, University of California, Los Angeles (2003). Morse is as influenced by the geography, history, and mythology of the Southwest as he is by the language of advertising, collage, and comics. His compositions combine all these elements in colorful and complex layered artworks akin to epic illustrations and surreal, alternate worlds where time is often ambiguous.
To learn more, visit:
https://www.aaronmorse.com/ 
