Watering Hole

Peter Tomka

April 1 – May 6, 2023
Opening April 1, 2023
‘Watering Hole’ is the site for a new body of work by Peter Tomka at the Fulcrum Press. The works on view range from the artist’s self-portrait to those of his friends, strangers, celebrity figures and WPA-commissioned statues. Tomka combines his original photography with found images of Rock Hudson, Stone Cold Steve Austin and Jerry Buss suspended in celebratory moments. The Westlake Theatre and Hollywood sign in the backgrounds of two separate pictures map his work in the cultural milieu of Los Angeles. His allusion to cinema can be seen not only in the subject matter but also in his process, where he projects onto gelatin silver paper to create a single photograph.

Portraits of the ‘Power of Water’, a figure fixed in a now defunct and barren fountain and the statue ‘Prometheus Bringing Fire to the Earth’ are relics that bear the marks of time. They both have years of accumulated damage and while Prometheus has one hand missing, he is depicted with the remaining one left intact. He is bearing the torch and waving at us from the watering hole, a place for happy endings.

Peter Tomka is an artist and founder of No Moon LA. His work is held in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He holds a BA from the University of Iowa and an MFA from the University of California, Riverside.