I'm currently on holidays, spending time in Santa Barbara, California, and Las Vegas, Nevada, visiting family and friends and sourcing new material for my artworks and projected exhibition.
Many people deride Las Vegas for its over-the-top aesthetic, but it's the unabashed kitsch set in a magnificent landscape of desert and mountain that I enjoy the most. The contrast is both shocking and stimulating, as surreal as a fever dream, a monument to conspicuous consumption cheek-by-jowl with rock and sand.
There is wilderness, arid plains and rocky crags, the habitat of wild burros, coyotes, bears, mountain lions, mule deer and assorted smaller mammals:
and at the other extreme, the opulence of The Strip.
and the crazy exuberance of Fremont Street with its psychedelic ceiling and gigantic neon signs:
And then, there's the amazing architecture. Last time I was here, I had the good fortune to be invited to explore the Lou Ruvo Centre for Brain Health, a stunning edifice designed by Frank Gehry:
which provided wonderful material for art photography:
Over the next week, I hope to capture more images from this intriguing city and its wild surroundings, before returning to Santa Barbara and journeying onward to Europe.
