Julie Zener Gallery

Los Angeles based artists Lily Flores, Serge Gil, and Scarlet Mann joined together in the summer of 2012 to form continual collective photography project “LA Odyssey” in order to showcase their shared passion for art, fashion, and the city in which they live. Los Angeles is a melting pot of personalities, atmospheres, and dreams.  LA Odyssey is an exploration of those manifestations, exposing the gritty underbelly to the illuminated upside that this city’s vastness presents us with.

The project is an ongoing expression based around one formula: nude models in masks posing in scenes from Los Angeles and its outskirts.  Within this basic framework the three artists have set forth to work together on shoots, sharing creative direction, while applying individual vision and perspective to make each shot their own, primarily through location, models, masks and poses.

Each artist chooses locations based on their own personal experiences in the city, wherever they may have been or derived inspiration from.  Lily travels from West to East exposing the contrasting culture present in the city’s diverse demographic. Serge’s industrial images from Long Beach take us on a journey to Vernon by way of West Hollywood.  Scarlet explores the broad geography, adventuring from Topanga’s nature to Hollywood’s glam.  Each of the artists’ various settings unite on a parallel journey, the journey of the LA experience in all of its diversity, vastness, and culture.

LA Odyssey explores the role of fashion, as well as its absence: what it masks and what it reveals.  The masked models are depersonalized to the extent that they become symbols, or perhaps even stand-ins and surrogates for their audience. Their naked forms absorb the atmosphere of their settings and transcend personal identity to become powerful allegorical images.