Artist Carla Jay Harris was selected to create a site-specific artwork for the Multipurpose Room at the park. Harris designed a digital mural translated into a laminated vinyl that spans three walls above the stage of this room. Titled The Guardians, this work honors the community center as a safe harbor to inspire its community and visitors. Community centers have always functioned as a sanctuary for Carla Jay Harris, providing a safe space to connect with family, friends, and neighbors. Harris designed this site-specific mural in response to the unprecedented events of 2020 -a global pandemic, a contentious US presidential election, and racial unrest. The Guardians expresses the need to safeguard community and demonstrates how creativity in public spaces promotes healing and fosters a sense of belonging. The mural's central theme is conveyed by a pair of female guardians who bookend the space acting as both the beginning and the end of a circle of protection for the Willowbrook community. They oversee a pastoral park scene that includes several elements of the local environment, including native birds and plants, interspersed with mythological imagery. By blending aspects of reality and fantasy, the artist intends to evoke a feeling of a surreal oasis. In wrapping the ceiling of the multipurpose room at Earvin Magic Johnson Park, The Guardians seek to celebrate the community-driven revitalization of the Willowbrook neighborhood. Carla Jay Harris is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice incorporates installation, collage, and drawing. Her creative process often involves documenting the space we live in through intellectual, emotional, and psychological lenses. Each of her projects begins as an exploration of one aspect of her personal experience and then evolves into a more significant statement about human nature.
To learn more, visit:
https://www.carlajayharris.com/ Born in Indianapolis and raised traveling the globe as the child of a military officer, Carla Jay Harris's social and artistic development was impacted tremendously by the geopolitical and natural environments she encountered. She believes that space (physical and physiological) has a fundamental, lasting impact on personal identity. While the environment around us is constantly evolving, photography has the power to capture humanity in a place, in a moment--transforming a flicker in time into a lasting, appreciable statement. Carla's work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in New York, Los Angeles, DC, Paris, and Quebec. She completed undergraduate coursework at the School of Visual Arts in New York, received her bachelor's degree with distinction from the University of Virginia, and her MFA from UCLA in 2015. She currently lives/works in Los Angeles. Her works are included in the collections of USC Fisher Museum; California African American Museum; Museum of Art and History, Lancaster, CA; The Museum of Fine Arts, Sherbrooke, Quebec; the Los Angeles Metro, General Mills; and numerous private collections.
