Artwork Detail

Artist Matthew Mazzotta created an exterior artwork for the Rancho Los Amigos Recuperative Care Center and Residential Treatment Program. Located in the courtyard between the Rancho Los Amigos Recuperative Care Center and the Residential Treatment Program building. The artwork Wrapped in Sunbeams reflects the citrus farming history of the area by creating a dichroic glass barn with built-in seating, a place of gathering for visitors and residents. The dichroic glass makes prism-like light changes and reflections in a changing array of colors. A weathervane in the form of an orange reflecting the citrus groves sits atop the structure. The artwork utilizes the therapeutic qualities of light in a quiet seating area to complement and assist the extraordinary mission of the center.

Matthew Mazzotta works at the intersection of art, activism, and urbanism, focusing on the power of the built environment to shape our relationships and experiences. His community-specific public projects integrate new forms of civic participation and social engagement into the built environment and reveal how the spaces we travel through and spend our time living within have the potential to become distinct sites for intimate, radical, and meaningful exchanges. Through his process, each project starts by creating temporary public spaces for listening- ‘Outdoor Living Room’-as a way to capture voices from local people that might not attend more formal meetings. Stemming from this approach are experiences that involve people from a range of backgrounds working together to create new models of living that contribute to local culture beyond the economic realm. Mazzotta's public projects have received international art and architecture awards such as the Architizer A+ Award, Azure's AZ Award, The WAN Award, and six of his projects have been recognized by the Americans for the Arts. Last year, in particular, he won four of the major international Architecture awards, as well as, “Architecture Project of the Year” by the Dezeen Awards at the Tate Modern in London. Matthew’s work has been featured on CNN, BBC, NPR, The Huffington Post, Discovery Channel, and Science Magazine to name a few and presented at the Cooper Hewitt-Smithsonian Design Museum in NYC. Mazzotta received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, a Masters of Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Program in Art, Culture and Technology, a Loeb Fellowship from Harvard University, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a TED Fellowship. To learn more visit: https://www.matthewmazzotta.com/