Artist's Biography

Mike Rogers was born in New York City in 1957 and now lives in Long Beach, California. He received his MFA from the Otis College of Art and Design in 1996. A multi-media artist who works primarily in sculpture, drawing, film, video, and photography, Rogers uses his art to investigate sociological and economic situations. His film, Cross Country, was included in the 2003 Sharjah Biennial VI in the United Arab Emirates, and was also shown at MIT’s List Visual Arts Center and at the Wexner Center for Contemporary Art at the Ohio State University. His 16-year collaborative project with London-based artist Dustin Ericksen, called Cups, has been exhibited at Museo Carrillo Gil in Mexico City and at the Kunsthalle Dusseldorf and Kunstmuseum Stuttgart in Germany. Along with Ericksen, Rogers co-founded the experimental Outdoor Art Space at the California Institute of Technology, which operated from 1999 to 2001. Other exhibitions include Gymnasion at the Palais Thurn & Taxis in Bregenz, Austria and, with Ericksen, at Artlab at Imperial College of Science, Technology, and Medicine in London. His solo project, El Caminoville, was exhibited at the University of Michigan and the Huntington Beach Art Center in Southern California. His illustrated novel about the art world, The Third Eye, was published in 2008 by Edicions 30 km/s of Barcelona. Rogers is represented by Cosar HMT in Dusseldorf, Rachmaninoff’s in London, and Parker’s Box in Brooklyn.

Curator's Biography

Renee Petropoulos holds a fine arts degree from UCLA and lives and works in Venice, California. Petropoulos is a painter whose work has become increasingly three-dimensional, reflecting an interest in decorative forms and images of different cultures. Heavily influenced by street art, her works often involve several layers of painted imagery. Her public art commissions include a large painted ceiling at the downtown Los Angeles Public Library, a series of sculptures in Culver City, and a collaborative project for the Municipal Services Building in downtown Philadelphia.