Lucas Chemotti | Suburban Infrastructure and Prison Architecture

LUCAS CHEMOTTI | SUBURBAN INFRASTRUCTURE AND PRISON ARCHITECTURE

ARTISTS’ RECEPTION + BOOK SIGNING: March 28, 7–9 PM                                     

EXHIBITION: March 26 – 28, 2026

The latest work by Lucas Chemotti (b. 1993, CA) is a study of the suburban landscape surrounding Los Angeles. Distressed, manipulated, eroding, and disfigured, these photo-based works reveal fractures in our notions of freedom and the remnants of perceived security.

Concrete is used as a tool in this project, both materially as a medium and subject. It is used as a canvas in the construction of his wall pieces and appears throughout the imagery as a dominant presence — barren evidence of how the material shapes and controls the Southern Californian landscape. Chemotti has compiled his images into two handmade zines titled Suburban Infrastructure and Prison Architecture, and presented as large-scale blueprint paintings on the gallery walls.

Suburban Infrastructure focuses on the freeways and overpasses that connect the suburbs in a purely utilitarian manner. While functioning as the lifeblood of daily transit, these brutalist structures also define the visual identity of the environments we move through and often overlook.

Prison Architecture examines a frequently ignored element of the landscape designed in a brutalist style. Located just off the freeway, the Twin Towers and Metropolitan Detention Centers stand as stark, imposing forms whose true purpose may not be immediately apparent to passersby.

Together these works capture a landscape that reflects what we choose to hide. They raise questions about the fractures within our ideas of freedom and security, and the way we interact with them.