HAPPY is pleased to present "registered", an exhibition of new drawings by May Jong. Jong investigates ownership of and intellectual rights over nature in her presentation of drawings of the The Lone Cypress®. The Lone Cypress® is the corporate logo of the Pebble Beach Company, a gated community in Central California who retain all legal rights to the tree. A consummate observer with a deft hand, Jong's drawings simply and beautifully portray the ridiculousness of the company's mission by use of her classical, pen and ink style. The viewer is invited into Jong's "personal" vision of what was once simple and free but is now simply co-opted. Jong was born in Hong Kong and raised in Los Angeles and has a BA from UC Berkeley and an MFA from Claremont Graduate University. She was co-founder and co-director of Me and You Variety Candy, an alternative art space showing emerging artists and has exhibited her work throughout Los Angeles and the United States.
Also opening, and screening in Happy's project space are selections from the Echo Park Film Center's Youth Documentary Film Class project, This is the LA River. Featuring 21 neighborhood youth between the ages of 14 and 19, each student was given a Super 8 camera to document his or her impressions of the river over one weekend. Part of the class's larger 16mm documentary film project, these personal shorts present the mysterious and sometimes forgotten LA landmark as funny, freakish, reflective, problematic, beautiful, political and ultimately a reminder of the power of the river as interpreted by these young visionaries. Contributing students: Daisy Aquino, Kaymen Barber, Cord Brooks, Niki Cornejo, Sandra Fregozo, Daniel Garcia, Ismael Antonio Garcia, Brenda Gordiano, Nalani Hernandez-Melo, Ava Hess, Spencer Jezewski, Tatiana Luboviski-Acosta, Alice Poteriaiko, Steven Ramos, Jose Santos, Rachel Syms, Mateo Tate-Contreras, Luc Unruh, Vincent Uribe, Emily Van Cise and Woodrow White.
