LIGHTWAVES: Experimental Photo-Art from California

The gallery is pleased to present an exhibition celebrating a golden generation of California artists and their unique contributions to the progression of the photographic medium. Through perception-testing views of the land, sea, and sky, each artist on view creates one-of-a-kind works that radiate a spirit of innovation from the West Coast. A supporting installation in the gallery's loft provides historic context with rare prints from Ansel Adams, Ruth Bernhard, Wynn Bullock, William Garnett, and Brett Weston. The processual ideas explored by this earlier generation of California practitioners echo through many of the works in the contemporary presentation. 

From the border to the Bay, California has incubated generations of groundbreaking photographers concerned with the land. Their renderings of light and space served to question how we perceive the landscape and to what ends. From the surveying endeavors of the later 19th Century and the Pictorialism of the early 20th to the “straight” photography of Group f.64 and the modernists of the Central Coast... Waves of California artists have sought to translate its wilderness and cities through light, ever emphasizing the craftsmanship of photographic printmaking as crucial to their work.

Today we see artists who are more engaged than ever with the photo-object; A seeming paradox considering the fast-paced consumption of digital images that dominate our modern visual culture. Or perhaps this is just the catalyst needed for contemporary artists to undermine that disposable world through slow alchemy on paper. While this group exhibition is by no means all-encompassing, as there is an exciting prevalence of Golden State artists working in photography, it seeks to introduce some of the region’s leading figures to a new community through a tightly curated presentation of their diverse, experimental processes.   


Please contact the gallery to request a list of works or to schedule a private viewing.