Capturing the magical glow of the golden hour, the wealthy blue of the early night and the morning yellow within the morning, Seth Armstrong transports us to southern California in his sequence in oil work. The intense bungalos, the electrical traces, the palm bushes and the shrubs put the legs that mannequin Los Angeles, with the San Gabriel mountains that always rise within the background.
Greenery performs a central function in Armstrong’s suburban portraits, revealing and hiding roads, homes and infrastructure – evocatively for the popularity of town as a spot the place any dream appears attainable. Nonetheless, its prolonged neighborhoods, the immense richness and the locus of the leisure business are likely to obscure the subcursions dropped at gentle by the latest protests on immigration or devastating fires final yr.
Subsequent month Armstrong opens a solo exhibition entitled Subrosa On the London unit, borrowing from the Latin expression “beneath the rose”, which signifies the key or discretion. The artist relies on his personal observations about his neighborhood in La in the course of the lengthy and morning walks along with his younger son.
Seen from a distance, the hill neighborhoods seem idyllic, even paradisiacal, but it surely suggests parts exterior this metropolis continually in stream: socio-political tensions, frightened mountains and homes on the stage of fireside and palpable financial disappearances. Generally persons are current, half hidden in home windows and sometimes seen solely when they’re seen up. “There’s a substance behind the kinds,” says Armstrong. “Generally you look inside. Generally no.”
Subrosa It takes place between July 9 and August 17. See extra on the Armstrong web site and on Instagram.
