LOS ANGELES RIVER SERIES

The Los Angeles River Series is a large scale multi-year painting project by California fine artist John Kosta. The series documents the the artist's impressions about this river (that many Angelinos call their own) in an effort to call attention to its beauty as it is, as well as what might be as envisioned by the Los Angeles River Revitalization Project. (Re)discover this often forgotten waterway and its role in Los Angeles' history and future through his paintings. 

As a native Californian, I have lived in the Los Angeles area my entire life enjoying the region's cultural and geographical diversity.  In 2017, I took a day trip to hike into the main concrete channel of the Los Angeles River where I was struck by its incredible beauty -- not beauty in the typical sense, such as pretty trees, vegetation and wildlife (though that does exist in the Glendale Narrows area of the river), but rather in the feelings of glorious isolation, silence, brutal architecture, the play of light and shadow --  all just moments from the hustle and bustle of a major metropolitan downtown.  I was led to visually document this kind of beauty along its entire 51-mile length, from the river's source in the San Fernando Valley to its terminus in the Long Beach Harbor. 

Iconic rivers throughout the world have served as not only muses for artists but essential backdrops for everyday life: Paris has the Seine; London, the Thames; Rome, the Tiber.  Such waterways have continued to play an essential role in the lives of the communities that they run through.  In contrast, Los Angeles seems to have turned its back on its river and, after the flood of 1938 and with the help of the US Army Corps of Engineers, the Los Angeles River was lined with concrete and turned into a lifeless drainage channel. 

The Los Angeles River in fact has always played a number of vital roles.  As the primary watershed for almost all of Los Angeles County, the river can undergo remarkable and monumental shifts in mere hours from sleepy stream to raging torrent:  During brief periods of flash rainfall, the Los Angeles River can carry more water per minute than even the great Mississippi.  In more quiet times, when its flow returns to normal, parts of the river can be bicycled and hiked.  In the Glendale Narrows area, near Atwater Village, the river becomes a meandering granite-strewn stream with migratory birds and home to abundant aquatic life were sport fishers angle for carp and canoeists dodge boulders. Further south, near and beyond the city center, more man-made features prevail including historical architectural arches, brutalistic overpasses and civil engineering miracles.  And along its short 51-mile length, vistas include high-rise skyscrapers, oil refineries, movie studio back lots, and the once-admired Queen Mary.  Most Angelinos have seen their river hundreds of times, often in short glimpses as passed over on highways or trains.  This is a river submerged in the public’s consciousness, always present, and yet often invisible. 

After years of neglect, a tremendous undertaking by the City of Los Angeles has began to take shape:  “Our River. Our Future.”  The Los Angeles River Revitalization Project is working to increase public access as well as the environmental sustainability of this mostly forgotten waterway.   It is my hope that this Los Angeles River Series of paintings will help bring greater appreciation to urban rivers around the world and to bolster efforts by local authorities for their revitalization.

If you have any questions about the Los Angles River series, comments, or knowledge of particular spots of interest, feel free to contact me.