continuing to look at West Coast photographers…

Los Angeles photographer, Jeff McLane, showcases the Rothko-like paintings that we Angelenos have in our visual vocabulary on an daily basis and don’t give a second thought. His series, Exteriors, captures the constant re beautification of buildings and walls in L.A. and makes us look at miss-matched paint in a new way. An Oklahoma native, Jeff has a number of perceptive series that make us rethink our city, another favorite is Property Lines.

A graduate of CalArts, his current work focuses on city beautification and exterior landscape. “In Los Angeles, graffiti is seen on almost even corner, and any blank wall space falls victim to the tagging by way of spray paint. The city sends out groups of people to paint over the graffiti, using city-supplied paint in most cases, which never seems to match the color of the original wall.

I am photographing these coverings, and am cropping the two-dimensional surface of the wall in the cameras ground glass. Once the wall is photographed, the paint that has been spread on the wall acts as my own art-making material. In a way, these walls become my own canvas, and the paint that covers the graffiti becomes my subject. This focus on subject and object is exciting to me, and could not happen without the relationship that photography has to its own materials.”

Images from Exteriors

Images from Property Lines