California

Chiara's Los Angeles is neither idyllic nor a sprawling urban hell, and neither glamorous nor exploitative. Working with a hand-built camera obscura transported on a flatbed trailer, Chiara exposed unique Ilfochrome prints directly on site, frequently using the vertical diptych. The images are direct and specific: a desert fan palm growing through fortified concrete, power lines reflected in blazing sun, a hillside of scorched earth. Titled for the intersections and roads where they were made, among them Topanga Canyon Boulevard at Pacific Coast Highway (2012) and Western Canyon Road at Mount Hollywood Drive (2013), the prints are slightly washed out and sun-bleached. They convey the heat, glare, and light of the city as it is experienced.