Los Angeles painter and print maker Barbara Thomason has an exhibition on view at the Pacific Asia Museum.









Thomason has mirrored the 19th century Japanese master artist Utagawa Hiroshige's Oban aspect ratio, gradients, color and other design devices of classical Japanese landscape Ukiyo-e in portraits of urban Los Angeles, from the well known to the funky and obscure. Felix Chevrolet...Tommy's chili burgers...the Art Deco style 'Coca-Cola' bottling plant. It's all there, and much more.

Her media, appropriately, is cartoon cell vinyl paint, yet one wouldn't guess it to view her luminous paintings, which look more like woodblock prints or perhaps gouache (opaque watercolor) paintings.

Wonderful ideas and craftsmanship, well worth a visit to the beautiful museum. While in Pasadena, you can also catch an inspiring show of the Hiroshige landscape prints Thomason modeled her works after at the Norton Simon Museum.