@ Riverside Art Museum
September 24, 2022 – January 15, 2023
Fred Brashear’s series Endemic Treasures is a photo-based project that focuses on preventing the removal of Joshua trees for future construction of residential communities and businesses in the Mojave Desert. With the Joshua tree as his muse, issues of the ongoing climate crisis and the continual encroachment of humans for capitalistic gains into the Mojave landscape point to wider issues of urbanization, industrialization, and socio-economic disparities found within our society.
With permission from a construction site in 2015, Brashear reclaimed organic material from a Joshua tree that was removed from its natural habitat, destined for refuse. Developing original techniques, Brashear creates handmade Joshua tree paper to which he adheres photographically captured images of untouched Joshua trees and Joshua tree landscapes through a lift transfer process.
Image: Fred Brashear, Endemic Treasures Color #1
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