This photo essay ‘Los Angeles’ is an archive and a map about the place where I live. My paternal great uncle came first, in the 19-teens, followed by his younger brother, my grandfather, and eventually their parents and two younger siblings. I don’t know when my paternal grandmother came. My maternal grandparents came in the late 1930’s. I began by locating where they all lived and then searching for artists I have an affinity for, finding where they lived and all the places I’ve lived along with places that I decided were relevant to my family and me. Along with these locations I photograph intersections and reservoirs, symbolically and literally the lifeline and no-places of the city.
There are also diversions – a series of pictures taken within walking distance of where I live now, pictures recording the progress of a new art museum being built, videos of traffic, videos of streets, videos of people going about their lives in Los Angeles. Using various cameras, films and technologies to make the documents, meaning is built through accretion, pattern and repetition.
While all of these things are rooted in time and place my intention is to record it as the present moment each time I go, authentic place is always changing and I am interested in the dialectic between the distant view and the close look, space and place, the document and the memory.
Bio
Born 1969, Los Angeles.
1987 – 1995: Studied Photography at San Francisco State University, San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI), Intermedia and Photography, Nova Scotia College of Art & Design (NSCAD) and Photography and Critical Writing, California Institute of the Arts (CalArts).
EXHIBITIONS/AWARDS
2008
MoCA Bake Sale, Los Angeles, CA
Action/Performance with Angie Lee consisting of various baked goods and confections representing items from the permanent collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art sold on the sidewalk.
2004
Antai Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Photographs – Group Show
Postartum, Long Beach, CA
Girlfriends, Wives & Lovers.
Photographs– Group Show
London Street Projects, Los Angeles, CA
Photographs – Group Show
2003
Recipient of an Avery Adventure in China travel grant, traveled throughout China photographing Classical Gardens
1998
Austellungsraum, Frankfurt, Germany
Photographs of empty lots in Los Angeles
2-person show with Angie Lee
1997
Lecturer in Photography, UCLA
1996
Etwas besseres als den Tod findest du überall, Frankfurt, Germany.
Curated by Thomas Erdelmeir, Brigitte Franzen and Manfred Schneider.
A set of photographs with unrelated text – Group Show
Windegg, an installation of painted eggs and chicken wishbones followed by an Easter egg hunt.
Three Day Weekend, Los Angeles, CA
Made in collaboration with Angie Lee, Florian Haas and Martin Schmidl.
1995
“You Have the Eyes of a Stranger” an essay on Ralph Eugene Meatyard and Edgar Allen Poe, published in Camera Austria, issue 50
Three Day Weekend Takes an Extended Working Vacation, DiverseWorks, Houston, Texas
Three sets of three photographs depicting superstitions – Group Show
1994
Errant Bodies #2, Los Angeles, CA.
Essay and photographs of backyards in Halifax, Nova Scotia and Los Angeles
1993
The Los Angeles Festival: Crossing L.A
Documentary/Installation made with Diane Bromberg, Benjamin Craig, Josh Hartley, Laura Owens and Colin Zaug about the history and intersectional politics of the area surrounding the exhibition site.
1992
FAR Bazaar. The Old Federal Reserve Building, L.A., CA.
News World Order, exhibited New York Times book project – Group Show
FAR Bazaar. The Old Federal Reserve Building, L.A., CA.
On Location, collaborative project with Diane Bromberg, Tsia Carson, Benjamin Craig, Josh Hartley, Douglas Lloyd, Laura Owens and Colin Zaug. We phoned random people in the phone directory and asked what was their favorite place in Los Angeles, then photographed it. The installation consisted of a hand drawn map of Los Angeles on the floor, made with pages from the phone directory, and photographs of all the places placed around the map. – Group Show
Four (More) Years Of… Handmade books collecting all the photographs of the presidential candidates as published on the front page of the New York Times.
The Los Angeles Center for Photographic Studies, Los Angeles, CA. – Group Show