Elger Esser: My Days at Ray's
ROSEGALLERY is pleased to present My Days at Ray's, an exhibition of recent work by Elger Esser. The exhibition marks a significant moment in Esser's practice: a presentation of his ongoing series of works on silvered copper alongside the debut of a new technique, painted photographs on silver-plated copper, that extends his work into the territory of singular, material objects.
Elger Esser's work continues to explore the relationship between nature, landscape, and the spaces we create within it. His photographs of open water and expansive skies present an elemental world seemingly untouched by human presence.
A similarly intimate sensibility informs My Days at Ray's. Inspired in part by Edward Weston's celebrated diaries documenting his own travels through the American West, Esser brought a diarist's attentiveness to both landscape and domestic space. In 2008, commissioned by Anthony E. Nicholas, director of The Lapis Press, to photograph the American West, Esser was housed during his residency in a stunning mid-century modern pool house belonging to legendary songwriter Ray Evans, whose songbook includes Que Sera, Sera, Mona Lisa, and Silver Bells. His travels through the West culminated in the Lapis editions Six American Sunsets, which formed the foundation of his first exhibition at ROSEGALLERY. Between those journeys, Esser turned his camera to the pool house itself: its light, its rooms, its quiet corners, and the sweeping view of the Los Angeles cityscape beyond. These images, distinct from his landscape work, are the foundation of My Days at Ray's. More information about Ray Evans can be found at rayevans.org.
Printed using dry ink and worked by hand with oil paint, shellac, and varnish on silver-plated copper, each piece moves beyond the reproducible logic of photography. The metallic ground becomes an active pictorial field, responding to light and movement, shifting between description and emotion. Each work exists as a luminous object: part memory, part painting, part alchemy. This body of work marks a pivotal evolution in Esser's practice, asserting singularity, material presence, and direct artist intervention. As one-of-a-kind objects, these works hold particular relevance for collections invested in masterworks that challenge medium boundaries.
