Exhibitions

All Creatures Great & Small 2019 - Photography Exhibit & Sale

Language Of Color 2019 - Photography Exhibit & Sale

Restored Chumash pictographs, photos of Malibu’s beauty displayed in NPS exhibit - 2018

August 14, 2018
Restored Chumash pictographs, photos of Malibu’s beauty displayed in NPS exhibit
Barbara Burke, Freelance Reporter, Malibu Surfside News
10:56 am PDT August 14, 2018

“My mission is to reveal beauty, of the land and ocean, the animals and the cultural landscape of ancient peoples,” Jazan Kozma said.
At an artist’s reception for “Keep it Wild! Malibu’s Mountains and Ocean,” an exhibit by photographer and Chumash pictograph illustrator Jazan Kozma at King Gillette Ranch on Aug. 5, attendees viewed innovative artistic explorations depicting the natural phenomena amid the mountains and the oceans.
Kozma strives to document and celebrate the status quo of Malibu’s special environs, its creatures, features, flora and fauna. She uses her lens to preserve the phenomena that make Malibu wonderful.
“Each work is indescribably beautiful,” attendee John Melton said. “One feels as if each picture captures the essence of the subject and that the viewer is part of the image.”
Kozma takes her time when she lines up a shot. Her captured image is designed to allow a viewer to feel like a part of the action of a fleeting moments forever etched in her creative captures.
When Hurricane Marie hit the Malibu Pier in 2014, Kozma was there, capturing a wipeout by a death-defying surfer who lived to tell the tale but might not be able to recount it as colorfully as Kozma’s shot. A viewer almost can hear the surfer shouting mid-air. Kozma also shows surfers hunkered below the Malibu Farm Pier Cafe, which also survived the onslaught.
Moments in Malibu’s mountains mystify Kozma, who cherishes photographing the area’s natural features. The sea also beckons Kozma, who often manages to capture images of pelicans, cormorants and sea lions on the rocks of Point Dume. 

Kozma’s other fascination offers the piece de resistance of the exhibit. Two colorful, restored pictograph images of Chumash cave art beckon viewers. Kozma painstakingly restored the pigment on the panels from cave art she will only vaguely describe as “somewhere near Point Mugu.” 
One such work took her a full year — more than 300 labor-intensive hours — to create. “Birth of a Shaman,” a 24-inch-by-24-inch piece depicting a Chumash shaman’s attire, demeanor and aura, emulates one of the panels that has survived best. Such rock paintings were sacred to the Chumash. 
The location of the original pictographs must remain secret so they are not defaced. Archeologists, paleontologists, geologists and historians struggle to preserve them. Kozma has painstakingly tried to depict their original vibrancy and hues, utilizing a digital restoration proprietary method that she also keeps secret.
“Look carefully here,” Kozma told viewers. “This is the only glyph (on a second panel not shown above) that illustrates a severed right hand. Our understanding is: at the last moment of battle, the victor took a relic similar to folklore about the victor taking a scalp. In this culture, they took a severed right hand.
“Look yet closer here on the left. They believed that members of their nobility were spiritual and their hearts shot out as starlight. Look at the light emanating here that is akin to starlight.”
Juxtaposed next to another of Kozma’s Chumash pictograph renditions from the Carrizo Plain is a photograph of a Chumash shaman from the 1870s. The image depicts the special jewels, headdress and accoutrement worn only by such men.
The Chumash left some hints about their ancient society and ways, captured in the cave pictographs, but we are left to wonder what many of their images and symbols meant. Some of the rock art shows evidence of overpainting — newer images were placed atop the ancients’ original pictographs, a placard adjacent to the work informs.
That is the essence of Kozma’s exhibition thesis: “Man, always in a hurry and often not thinking long term, ought not paint over, pave over or overlook the beauty and essence of Malibu’s magnificence — and its history.”
The exhibit is to remain on display daily from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. through Sept. 2, 2018.
For more information on Kozma, visit http://www.jazankozmaphotography.com.
Written By Barbara Burke, Freelance Reporter, Malibu Surfside News

Keep It Wild! 2018 - Photography Exhibit & Sale

Keep It Wild! 2017 - Photography Exhibit & Sale

The on going 'Keep It Wild' photographic series is my tribute and thank you to all the people whose conservation efforts have helped establish our state and national parks, our open spaces, and our standards and enforcement of clean air and water. A portion of the funds from art sales will be donated to the Arts in the Parks program.

Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation AreaNational Park ServiceKing Gillette Ranch Visitor CenterPhotography exhibit and sale by Jazan Kozma April 29th thru May 30th 2017Opening Reception King Gillette Ranch Visitor Center Sat May 6th 2'00 PM to 3'30 PM

Keep It Wild! 2016 - Photography Exhibit & Sale

Keep It Wild! 2016 - Photography Exhibit & Sale

2015 - Juried Exhibition - Southern Nevada Museum Of Fine Art

This Photograph is now part of the Permanent Collection of the Southern Nevada Museum of Fine Art