In the late 1970s, Tim Bradley was a photography student living above a grocery store in Glendale. Inspired by the lush color photography of that period, he began a four-year project exploring the singular qualities of California light and space using his aging neighborhood as a backdrop. The resulting body of work, entitled California Dwelling, was shown only once and then put away for thirty years. In 2010, he started the slow process of having the original negatives restored and printed to recapture the soft palette that defines our regional light. He observed that “the layering of old bungalows, postwar apartments, vintage cars and traces of contemporary suburban life made the places look like no one know what decade it was. Sunlit pastel surfaces and night views with illuminated facades and impossible shadows projected a feeling of theatricality.” California Dwelling is Tim Bradley’s first exhibition with Craig Krull Gallery, and will consist of a selection of 32 x 38” archival pigment prints.

Concurrently, the gallery will present an exhibition of photographs by Mark Swope entitled, Foliage. Like Bradley, Swope has focused on urban residential neighborhoods of Southern California, but with a specific interest in the relationship between the built environment and ornamental horticulture. His black and white images reflect an aesthetic and theoretical approach associated with the New Topographic movement in photography, and artists such as Joe Deal and Henry Wessel Jr. Some of the images document crisp, neat hedges that define yards and boundaries, or perfectly trimmed topiaries that suggest constant attention to detail. Others depict plant life wildly out of control, such as giant Hollywood Junipers whose tentacle-like branches resemble the tips of flames as they overpower tiny, modest bungalows. This exhibition, Swope’s fifth at Craig Krull Gallery, follows previous photographic bodies of work on local subject matter including The Los Angeles River, The Cornfields, vintage rooftop signage, and the trees of Elysian Park.