Los Angeles Art Association/Gallery 825

Presents;

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H I G H  &  D R Y:

Dispatches from the Land of Little Rain

March 22 to April 18, 2014,

Opening reception

March 22^nd 6-9pm at the

Los Angeles Art Association/Gallery 825

825 N. La Cienega Blvd

Los Angeles (February 24): With a serious drought upon us, and at a time when the rush to develop renewable energies will, for good or bad, indelibly transform the landscape, photographer Osceola Refetoff documents the California desert in relationship to human activity.

A century of iconic images of these arid landscapes are part of our cultural DNA, essential to the legend of the West and to our assumptions of what it means to be an American. Against these grand ideals exists a loose patchwork of struggling communities, military compounds and vast open spaces, long a refuge for loners, dreamers, and broken spirits.

In a solo exhibition hosted by the Los Angeles Art Association, Osceola Refetoff reveals a nuanced view of these lands, reflecting on the love, faith, hope and despair that accompany the inevitable decay of all human enterprise. While large expanses of the desert remain largely defiant to human trespass, the window vistas in his photographs may soon become a nostalgic glimpse into the past. Several of the depicted structures have already been torn down to make way for wind and solar projects of the type that will likely dominate many areas, transforming the landscape in ways that are complex and irreversible.

The Gallery 825 exhibition is the first material manifestation of an ongoing collaboration with writer/historian Christopher Langley that will document our human legacy in the California desert at the newly launched website www.DesertDispatches.com.

Osceola Refetoff holds an M.F.A. from New York University’s Graduate Film Program, where he earned Paulette Goddard and Warner Bros Fellowships. His photography was featured in the two most recent Art of Photography exhibitions at the San Diego Art Institute; the Lucie Foundation exhibit at Art Platform-LA and MOPLA’s Los Angeles: A Place in the Sun curated by Audrey Landreth. Mr. Refetoff is a freelance photographer and location scout, focusing on architectural photography and environmental portraiture. His award-winning editorial photography appears in Hemispheres (United) and Go (Southwest Airlines) magazines, among others. He currently resides on Chung King Rd in Los Angeles’ historic Chinatown. Mr Refetoff’s images will also be featured in the upcoming Fact+Friction exhibit opening April 26 as part of Month of Photography Los Angeles.

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