riverrun

Ray Carofano’s riverrun is a suite of photographs capturing seldom seen images of the fifty-one mile storm drain that is still flatteringly called the Los Angeles River. Forsaken for so long and fenced off from the very communities it once sustained, the river is now primarily a flood control channel and conduit for urban waste.

Taking “less-picturesque” portions of the river as his subject, Carofano’s carefully framed images reveal the not-so-hidden majesty of the concrete, the smooth lines of the river’s channel and its functionality. Sophisticated geometry, atmospheric light and color, and rightness of scale lend these images a painterly quality that requires close observation to determine that they are indeed photographs.

Ron Linden

Painter. Curator & Professor of Art