March 24 through May 26, 2018
Extended through June 23, 2018
Opening Reception: Saturday, March 24, 7-10PM
Bermudez Projects’ latest exhibit takes you into the woods … and into the desert … and into the mountains, with Josh Patterson, whose photographic eye matches his urge to be where people aren’t.
In 15 mostly black-and-white photographic prints, Patterson’s debut solo exhibit takes us to a haunted cabin in the Angeles National Forest, to the wind-battered shell adobe buildings of Ryan Ranch in Joshua Tree, and a dozen other remote locations Patterson felt an ineffable urge to visit.
How does he get these shots? Luck, they say, favors the well-prepared. Patterson wakes up and is out of the house when the rest of us are still dreaming. When he arrives at God Knows Where, he makes his own trail. And so, when he arrives at the mountain dwelling that was probably last occupied by a Mount Lowe Railway engineer, he’s there when the mist just starts burning off the forest floor. When the glowering clouds crown the old adobe in the desert, he’s there.
“Growing up in a cabin in the Pennsylvania woods,” says the 44-year-old, “The wilderness has always been where I felt most at home. Between endless explorations of the countryside and two-week trips deep into the high country of the Adirondack Mountains in New York, my love of nature feels as though I was born into it. It is a place of solace and peace for me, a place to satisfy my curiosity and wanderlust.”
He arrived in LA in 2007 and has lived in Burbank for the last 7 years, and likes his Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre and home-cooked meals … to a point. “My response was to push out,” he says. “First to the Verdugo Mountains, then the San Gabriels. Los Padres, Sequoia, Joshua Tree, Death Valley and points beyond followed inevitably.
The photographs in his exhibit at Bermudez Projects | DTLA range from 6”x9” to 20”x30”. There are 4 in color; 11 in black and white. All shot on a Canon 5D DSLR from 2012 to 2017.
“These works,” Patterson says, “are a window into my growing love for California’s rich biodiversity and staggering beauty.”
Josh Patterson (b. 1973) is a self-taught artist working in photography since 2012. Born in Reading, Pennsylvania, he studied music in Alberta; toured Europe and sang with a professional chamber choir for over 10 years. His writings and photographs have been published in magazines; and his works have been exhibited in group shows. Patterson lives and works in Burbank, CA.
