“Kristopher Raos: A Symbol or a Monument” on view at the Bakersfield Museum of Art September 25, 2025 – January 3, 2026
Ablin Gallery
September 25, 2025 – January 3, 2026Sponsored by City of Bakersfield, The Wheeler Foundation, Bryce & Florence York Fund, and Kern Family Health Care
A Symbol or a Monument explores how the foundational meanings of everyday structures—street signs, surfaces, and fragments of urban design—can shift over time. Through meticulously crafted surfaces and object-like compositions, Los Angeles based artist Kristopher Raos transforms the visual language of mass production into a minimalist vocabulary of memory and place.
Drawing from the built environment, Raos reinterprets overlooked materials with painterly precision and formal restraint. His work invites reflection on how utility becomes symbol and symbol becomes monument, highlighting how the worn details of daily life accumulate emotional and cultural weight through repetition, context, and the passage of time.
