These works pay homage to a desolate yet stimulating urban landscape, as captured by an artist whose palette is influenced by the ultra rural, the lush green countryside of the Wicklow Mountains in Ireland.
The high-rise building, its architectural detail, be it a decorative air vent or a graphic concrete façade, its layered practical and cultural additions (barbed wire, the wire mesh, the graffiti), its topography in the various warehouse districts of DTLA, and the factory output from them (flowers, fashion), take centre stage in a new body of work presented by photographer Alice Beresford.
The artist spent 3 months living in the downtown area of Los Angeles, armed with a camera and a bicycle for transport (in a town built for cars), the artist was able to get close to, and capture unaware, the subject that is DTLA.
Being a foreigner in this land brings a sense of alienation to these works, and a fresh pair of eyes searching for something familiar sees details that might not be observed by a local. In a burnt out and bleak landscape, where the blue of the sky is sometimes the only colour, the graffiti draws the artist to it, to its hues and its humour, as do flowers or fabrics. The architecture is then given a canvas upon which to be screenprinted. By combining two photographic images this experimental work was enabled by the artist’s residency in a completely unique way.
