The Long Beach Museum of Art presents Influential Element: Exploring the Impact of Water on view now through April 3, 2011.

Influential Element features 24 contemporary works by California-based artists who seek to explore the infinite ways in which water impacts our everyday life. Artists included in the exhibition are Young-Il Ahn, Lynn Aldrich, Adam Belt, Todd Brainard, Matthew Cornell, F. Scott Hess, Jeff Honea, Sant Khalsa, Marina Moevs, Jon Ng, Will Noble, Laura Parker, Elizabeth Patterson, Eric Tillinghast, Daena Title, Bill Viola and Eric Zener. The exhibition features works in a variety of media, including photography, watercolor, video, color pencil, and mixed media.

Elizabeth Patterson, Sunset Highway, 3pm, Color pencil and solvent

It is especially fitting that Influential Element: Exploring the Impact of Water debuts in a city in which water has historically played a vital and complex role, both from a recreational standpoint and as a major source of industry and commerce supporting Port operations. Influential Element presents twenty artist’s depictions of water in a variety of roles – as a sustaining force of life, and as one of the world’s most sought-after resources, as a medium for recreation and play, as a commercial entity that sustains business and trade, and as a violent and unpredictable weather force with the power to threaten our very existence. Not only does this exhibition offer breathtaking images of water, but it also reflects upon our increasingly complex relationship with the element – immersing the audience in a visual conversation about water.

Influential Element challenges viewers to reconsider their understanding of the role that water plays in our life, while offering stunning depictions of our most familiar natural element. In addition to Influential Element, the Museum displays works in wood from its permanent collection in The Lipton Collection and Branching Out. In this selection of artworks, there are a range of aesthetic expressions, some of which feature the natural grain of the wood. Others use wood for its structural properties or as a support for images like Binh Pho’s Lantern Festival II. The Lipton Collection and Branching Out are on display until April 3, 2011.

For more information, call (562) 439-2119 or visit www.lbma.org.

Related posts:

1. Frazier Museum Presents Water Works: 150 Years of Louisville Water Company
2. A Light in the Shadow – Decades of Art by Women at the Long Beach Museum of Art
3. Philadelphia Museum of Art Presents Gifts from the Philadelphia Water Color Club