Though best known for his conceptually complex multimedia work, Lewis deSoto returned to his early practice of photography in the 2012-15 series Empire. These meditative landscapes capture both the profound beauty and the tragedy of the land known as the Inland Empire of Southern California. Far from coolly objective records, these vistas are infused with formal elegance and record multifaceted histories of loss. DeSoto first surveyed this landscape as a student of Joe Deal, one of the photographers who participated in the iconic documentation project New Topographics in the 1970s.

DeSoto's first Empire series, 1979, centers on a drab environs of eerie, plastic interiors and mid-cen-tury architecture. Void of people, the images show old cars and worn buildings that recall a glamorous past. In his mature Empire series, consisting of sweeping panoramas and single-frame vignettes, deSoto returns to some of the same locales, but this time probing more deeply. Towns such as San Bernardino, Ontario, Rialto, and Palm Springs look tired and forlorn. Landscapes that are embued with personal memories and dramas for the artist are also suffused with the forgotten histories of failed industries, conflicts between settlers and Indigenous communities, and environmental desecration

Unsettling views at the shores of the inland Salton Sea and the desiccated remains of abandoned vineyards remind viewers of both the potential and the fragility of this powerful environment. At the same time, within the cycle of building and destruction, deSoto finds moments of pure beauty. The absence of people within these images focuses our attention on the impact of humankind.

- Kathleen Ash-Milby