Making a Splash: Artists Who Have Used Water as a Medium

Chris Onesto, California Drought, 2015. | Photo: Courtesy of the artist.

The relationship Californians have with water has never been as fraught as it is today. As we enter the fifth year of a drought, headlines announce some improvement in conditions but caution that the state-wide environmental issue is far from resolved. This summer, Los Angeles' first public art biennial, Current:LA, takes on the theme of water, engaging residents to rethink the way they live with the liquid substance. But this isn't the first drought in the Golden State, nor is it the first time artists have worked with water as a subject or a medium. Artbound looks to the past to consider the work of 11 artists, who have created with this vital resource.

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1. Fritz Haeg

Haeg, who has recently moved from his geodesic dome in Glassell Park to a former hippie colony in Mendocino County, made his Wildflowering L.A. project in 2013, teaming up with the Theodore Payne Foundation, a non-profit that specializes in California native plants. For the project, Haeg encouraged residents to plant drought-tolerant wildflowers on plots of land across the city.

Fritz Haeg, Wildflowering L.A., 2013. | Photo: Courtesy of the artist.

2. Lauren Bon and the Metabolic Studio

Bon and her cohorts at the Metabolic Studio have investigated water conservation and usage through art and research since 2005. In 2008, the Metabolic Studio set up a research facility on Owens Lake -- the very lake that dried up when L.A. diverted water from the Owens River into the city -- for a project called AgH20, which aimed to connect the 240 miles between Owens Valley and the residents of L.A. And in 2013, she organized a cross-state ride of 100 Mules to commemorate the centennial of the L.A. Aqueduct's completion.

One hundred mules in the Alabama Hills | Photo: Osceola Refetoff.

3. Sant Khalsa

Khalsa is a Joshua Tree-based eco-artist who has considered conservation and water usage for more than 30 years. Her photographic series include A Separate Real(i)ty, images of lakes in the desert near Joshua Tree; Western Waters, pictures of stores that commoditize drinking water; and Paving Paradise, shots of the Santa Ana River taken over three decades.

Sant Khalsa, A Separate Real(i)ty. | Photos: Courtesy of the artist.

4. Scoli Acosta

Earlier this year, Acosta teamed up with the Save the Drop campaign -- an initiative by the City of Los Angeles and Mayor's Fund for Los Angeles -- to create an installation at Union Station. Given four rain barrels and a large cistern to work with, Acosta created a resourceful and innovatively-designed system of rainwater capturing.

Scoli Acosta, Save the Drop: Union Station Sky Distillation Unit (demo), 2016. | Photo: Courtesy of the artist and Save The Drop L.A.

5. Rob Reynolds

Reynolds' exhibition Just Add Water (on view from November 2013 through January 2015) at the Natural History Museum -- which opened the day after the 100th anniversary of the completion of the L.A. Aqueduct -- paid tribute to the effects the aqueduct has had on Southern California. His 10 large-scale watercolor paintings depicted crucial locations and historic events in the aqueduct's history. He also made banners with the names of everyone who worked on the aqueduct, from the principal players William Mulholland and Frederick Eaton to the teamsters, ditch diggers, and dynamite specialists that built the infrastructure.

Rob Reynolds, Photograph of the St. Francis Dam at Capacity, (left) and Water and Power Building, 111 N. Hope St., L.A., CA 90012, (right) 2013. | Photos: Robert Wedemeyer, Rob Reynolds.

6. Chris Onesto

In 2015, Onesto established the mock California Water Company, a bottled water business that sells the final drops of California water -- the bottles are only about one-tenth full. He created billboards and print ads as well as a website dedicated to the project. The action may seem absurd, but Nestle, Pepsi (Aquafina), Coca-Cola (Dasani), and Crystal Geyser all operate bottled water manufacturing plants in California.

Chris Onesto, California Drought, 2015. | Photo: Courtesy of the artist.

7. Ana Mar a Alvarez

In January, Alvarez's Contra-Tiempo dance company debuted Agua Furiosa at CAP UCLA. The evening-length performance based on Oy (the Afro-Cuban deity of wind and storms) and Shakespeare's The Tempest incorporated modern ideas of how water -- access to clean drinking water in particular -- and racism intertwine.

8. Brittany App

App, who lives in San Luis Obispo, has been photographing the effects the drought has had on the California landscape since 2013. Her series Where There Once Was Water is a sobering look at dry riverbeds and lakes, reservoirs that look half empty, and cracked earth. She is currently working on completing a documentary about the future of the California water supply, and how we can make it sustainable.

This aerial photograph highlights the effects of the drought on the Laguna Lake area of San Luis Obispo. | Photo: Brittany App.

9. David Hockney

The legendary L.A. and London-based artist has painted scenes of poolside frivolity since the 1960s. He also painted the iconic curved-line mural on the bottom of the iconic Tropicana Pool at the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood, now one of L.A.'s most important water-based landmarks.

David Hockney, A Bigger Splash, 1967. Acrylic paint on canvas. | Photo: David Hockney/Tate Britian.

10. Michael Asher

A noted conceptual artist with a pranksters spirit, the late Asher's water fountain at UC San Diego is storied, and one of the few things he left behind. It really is a seemingly banal, commercial-style water fountain, but it also calls to mind Southern Californias need to manage and preserve its natural resources, states the UCSD Stuart Collection site. The art piece has b

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