Stacie Jaye Meyer

Stacie Jaye grew up in Milwaukee Wisconsin.  Living in Los Angeles for close to 20 years fire season has become a part of the yearly cycle of life. Stacie has long been interested in the relationship between humans and nature, the way individuals impact each other, and the world in which they live. Recently her artworks address the decimated landscapes of fire-torn California. Residing within range of these natural disasters, burning hillsides have become normalized.  These artworks have grown out of personal research and first-hand experience with her surroundings, inspiring a closer look at climate change and the impact humans are having on our planet.

 Stacie Jaye has been showing In Los Angeles over the last 20 years and is currently in private collections throughout the United States. 

Distillation Native Sumac Point Magu

The Distillation Series is a body of work that synthesizes my experience of a place. This was the first artwork in this series that incorporated found charcoal. While on a hike in the hills of Point Magu, (as a part of an Incendiary Traces excursion to explore the relationship between this gorgeous site and the military firing range that also resides below the bluffs) I sat down to draw only to find the remains of burnt branches, using this found material I began to sketch and then decided to take some of these small pieces of charred wood with me to experiment with as drawing material. At the time I had been studying California native ecology and the relationships it has with fire so this hike connected the dots for me.  Once back in the studio, using photos taken at the site, I created a collage that was used as the reference material for this large multi-piece, found charcoal drawing.

Distillation Sage Shrub La Tuna Canyon v.1 and v.2

Continuing the Distillation Series in 2017, I visited La Tuna Canyon a few weeks after a major burn. I was struck by the devastation and the total loss of all vegetation. There was a striking amount of ash, so much so that my feet would sink as I walked.  I spent the best part of a day walking this landscape, photographing what remained and sitting in stillness absorbing the silence of the hillside. no sounds of the moment. no leaves for the wind to rustle. no birds or insects.  just stillness.

back in the studio, I looked at images of what once lived on these now barren hills.  this drawing reflects the disrupted sagebrush that was rooted in this place, the soot, dust, and lack of life captured in this post-burn visit.  

Becoming Form Water Sun Yellow

Although I mostly draw and paint I have a deep love of 3D forms. With this work, I reconnect to my roots in installation, sculpture, and tromp-l’oeil.

Tromp-l’oeil translates to ‘trick of the eye’ and is an art technique that uses realistic imagery to create the optical illusion that the depicted objects exist in three dimensions.

This series was started out of a desire to deeply investigate color, light, and shadow (drawn and reflected).

Ashes Carry Our Ancestors (Diptych)

With devastating fires in California and around the globe increasing in size and scale, weeks of intense skies have become more common, darkened days, thick air, dry with burning ash on the windshield of the car.  I began spending time reflecting on the cycles of life, realizing that those ashes falling from the sky carry what’s left of someone’s home, the animal that didn’t make it out of the forests, the material worlds, and physical memories of someone’s life and even the body of a loved one lost to the flames.  Those ashes carry our collective history.  Those ashes are sacred in my mind.  We are all specks of dust.

Selection of Premonitions in the Sky - Series

These studies are part of an ongoing project exploring the color and quality of the limitless sky as it relates to the environment of Los Angeles.  Living in Southern California, the color of the air space has much to tell us about the health of our environment.  Hazy dull muted tones noting smog, orange-brown-beige smoke, layered over what appears to be a red sun telling of fire, clear bright blue, a sign of the passing Santa Ana Winds, clearing out the Los Angeles basin all have specific coloration associated with them.  These pastel drawings are a way to encapsulate these color pallets in a tangible form.