That Girl

They materialize on the plywood barriers surrounding construction sites throughout downtown Los Angeles: A young girl wearing a polka-dot dress under a sign that reads “Can’t Sing or Dance,� a blond sporting a bikini top and a pair of boxing gloves, a cowering man wearing nothing but a blindfold and briefs. Always the single word “becca� is scrawled nearby.

Becca is the signature of Becca Midwood, a lanky 30-year-old artist whose creations, with their mixture of decadence and vulnerability, are something of a metaphor for Los Angeles itself. Countless commuters have seen her wan-looking figures, rendered in a style one curator described as “a love child of Basquiat and Warhol,� only to lament their loss to a fresh coat of paint or to grotesque modifications, usually rendered in spray paint.

Midwood, in fact, has little in common with self-taught graffiti artists. She has a master’s degree in painting from the Art Institute in San Francisco and creates her pieces in a downtown studio she shares with another artist and two cats. Working with acrylics, Midwood paints her figures on butcher paper, then cuts them out like larger-than-life paper dolls. The cutouts are later pasted on construction barriers or abandoned buildings.

Midwood came to Los Angeles four years ago from New York, attracted by the very qualities of Southern California life most people find off-putting--the vast urban sprawl and the captive drive-by audience its car culture provides. The region’s inherent instability appealed to her as well. “Because of the riots and the earthquake,� she says, “there are lots of places where I can put up my work.� She radiates the same wounded innocence as her subjects, most of whom bear Frankenstein-ish scars on their otherwise uncorrupted bodies. While Midwood insists her work isn’t particularly autobiographical, some of her admirers aren’t convinced. “She once did this picture of some luggage with the word ‘more’ under it,� notes one, “which, I think, is her way of saying she’s got baggage.�

A reliable spot to sample Midwood’s work is the Japanese American National Museum Expansion Pavilion construction site on 1st Street and Central Avenue in Little Tokyo, where four of her figures are on view. When Midwood placed her work on the clean white barriers that surround the building site, the museum painted them out. She had won some fans among the construction workers, however, and they cleared an exhibit space for her in the site. The impromptu gallery is open to passersby 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. weekdays.