Viewing “Picturing Power,” the exhibit of photographs by Paul Shambroom at the CSULB University Art Museum, was exhilarating and at the same time disheartening. Like those YouTube videos of animals attacking each other, the creatures’ energy takes your breath away even as you realize—whether it’s leopard vs wildebeest or lizard vs tree frog—there’s got to be a loser. In these photographs, the soul-crushing power of man’s own inventions—whether it’s mechanical, economic, or political machines—wins every time.
Paul Shambroom’s style draws a lot from his background as a commercial photographer. His bold use of color and geometrics grab you like every full page glossy ad you’ve ever seen. His depictions of industrial setting reverberate with the frenzy of invention, and his office settings are chillingly accurate. Within the slick compositions lies a sensitivity to the anomaly and contradiction of modern life where convenience and efficiency have become life-threatening conditions. 
In the Security series, Shamboom often contrasts idyllic natural landscapes—a grove of birch trees, a single lane road—with people in monstrous hazmat suits or other dehumanizing protective gear to beg the question of the need for industrial progress. I found myself most moved by the interior photos. One shot, taken at the Combat Altert Facility for bomber crews at Ellsworth Air Force Base, juxtaposes sunlight flooding an exit ramp like the grace of God with a dimly lit dormitory room complete with a bedside Bible. Another, taken at North Star Steel Company, show a workman sitting in a bleak workroom looking up as if enraptured while just outside his door a cross of steel teeters at an angle and a furnace flares as red as the mouth of hell.
The exhibit runs through April and is well worth a visit—visually and intellectually stunning.
While walking to the CSULB campus where the University Art Museum is located, I encountered some provocative street art near a bus stop on perpetually hectic 7th Street. Scrawled on the side of some "street furniture" (one of those boxes that holds monitors, regulators, or some kind of control device that has to do with the public welfare that you see everywhere on city streets) were three outlines of vehicles piled on top of the word "Humans" and a question mark. As a rule I don't like graffiti, but this one expressed a thought I've had while waiting for the bus. "Get out of your cars and reclaim your humanity!" Little did I know this anonymous work of art was the perfect precursor to the exhibit I was about to see.
Paul Shambroom’s style draws a lot from his background as a commercial photographer. His bold use of color and geometrics grab you like every full page glossy ad you’ve ever seen. His depictions of industrial setting reverberate with the frenzy of invention, and his office settings are chillingly accurate. Within the slick compositions lies a sensitivity to the anomaly and contradiction of modern life where convenience and efficiency have become life-threatening conditions.
In the Security series, Shamboom often contrasts idyllic natural landscapes—a grove of birch trees, a single lane road—with people in monstrous hazmat suits or other dehumanizing protective gear to beg the question of the need for industrial progress. I found myself most moved by the interior photos. One shot, taken at the Combat Altert Facility for bomber crews at Ellsworth Air Force Base, juxtaposes sunlight flooding an exit ramp like the grace of God with a dimly lit dormitory room complete with a bedside Bible. Another, taken at North Star Steel Company, show a workman sitting in a bleak workroom looking up as if enraptured while just outside his door a cross of steel teeters at an angle and a furnace flares as red as the mouth of hell.The exhibit runs through April and is well worth a visit—visually and intellectually stunning.
While walking to the CSULB campus where the University Art Museum is located, I encountered some provocative street art near a bus stop on perpetually hectic 7th Street. Scrawled on the side of some "street furniture" (one of those boxes that holds monitors, regulators, or some kind of control device that has to do with the public welfare that you see everywhere on city streets) were three outlines of vehicles piled on top of the word "Humans" and a question mark. As a rule I don't like graffiti, but this one expressed a thought I've had while waiting for the bus. "Get out of your cars and reclaim your humanity!" Little did I know this anonymous work of art was the perfect precursor to the exhibit I was about to see.
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