Photo Independent – Los Angeles

Bridget Batch, Owens Lake Performance no. 1
Photo Independent
Raleigh Studios Hollywood
5300 Melrose Avenue
Hollywood, CA 90038
Booth #W06 in Stage 14
Opening night party Friday, April 29, 7-10pm
Saturday, April 30, 11am–7pm
Sunday, May 1, 11am–6pm
by LA Photography Diary | Hemera Collective
LA NOW: Bridget Batch, Heyward Hart, Colin Patrick Smith, Ilona Szwarc
Celebrating the rise of dynamic contemporary photographic practices in the greater Los Angeles area, LA Photography Diary and Hemera Collective showcase selected works and the distinctive voices of notable artists to watch.
The LA Photography Diary (www.la-photography-diary.com), a new addition to the already successful New York, London, and Berlin Photography Diary websites, pairs the latest exhibition and event listings with relevant criticism, promoting the diverse photography scenes within each of these major art metropolises. The Photography Diary(s) are published by Hemera Collective, a London-based curatorial collective specializing in photography exhibitions and research world-wide. The LA Photography Diary editors are Ann Harezlak and Rachel Zimmerman.

In the Owens Lake images from the series, Batch photographs within the nearly-dry lakebed of what was, until 100 years ago, a thriving lake and forest ecosystem perched in the arid rain shadow of the Eastern Sierra Nevada mountains. Now, damp and saline and coated with a skim of 5% of its previous acreage of water, the rest is siphoned off to quench the thirst of Angelenos. The photograph exists as an expanse of time, of movement and as evidence of a presence that would otherwise be invisible. Documenting but also addressing issues of place, the body and human impact upon the earth.
Bridget received her MFA in Photography from CalArts and BFA in Photography, magna cum laude, at University of Houston. She has exhibited internationally with solo exhibitions including: Halcyon in New York; Galleria Traghetto in Venice, Italy; Gallery D301, Valencia, CA. Group exhibitions including: Institute of Contemporary Arts, Singapore; Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, CA; 356 Mission, Los Angeles, CA; The Re-Institute, New York. Published in Hyperallergic, Ventana Monthly and ArtSlant, Batch has been awarded two merit Scholarships at CalArts and Tropical Lab in Singapore. She was awarded residencies in Canada (Klondike Institute of Arts & Culture), Arizona (Grand Canyon South Rim Program), Iceland (Herhúsið), New York (Salem Art Works), Italy (FABRICA). Batch lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.

His work, Charis Variations, is part of an ongoing investigation into the relationship between image, history, language, and form. For Charis Variations he photographed three different subjects which happened to share the same name: a negative depicting Weston’s famous muse, Weston’s grandson’s cat, and my hairdresser. The formal approach varies in each image while the subject, nominally speaking, remains the same.


Szwarc received an MFA in Photography from Yale University in New Haven, Conn. and a BFA from School of Visual Arts in New York City. She has had solo exhibitions at Foley Gallery in New York City, Claude Samuel in Paris, France, Amerika Haus in Munich, Germany, and Maison de la Photographie in Lille, France. Her work has been shown in group shows internationally – in London, Bilbao, Warsaw, Lodz, Chicago, and most recently at Regen Projects in Los Angeles and Danziger Gallery in New York. Szwarc has been awarded Richard Benson Prize for Excellence in Photography (2015), Arnold Newman Prize for New Directions in Photographic Portraiture (2014), World Press Photo (2013). In 2014, she received Alice Kimball Traveling Fellowship from Yale University. Szwarc’s photographs have been featured in numerous publications worldwide including The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, TIME, The UK Sunday Times Magazine, The Telegraph Magazine. Szwarc lives and works in Los Angeles, California.