Seth Armstrong

Thematically, Subrosa continues Armstrong’s long-standing exploration of privacy, voyeurism, and urban life. His compositions often depict houses obscured by foliage, or figures glimpsed through half-shut windows. Some works appear empty, only revealing their human presence after close inspection. Others play with the viewer’s expectations, offering uncanny stillness where one might anticipate life. Armstrong engineers moments of discovery – a sudden recognition of a figure, a shadow that shifts into meaning – fostering a sense of intimate connection that is at once playful and profound. “There’s substance behind the forms,” Armstrong notes, “Sometimes you get a peek inside, sometimes you don’t.”

The palette throughout this series is rich and saturated, reflecting Armstrong’s attention to atmospheric depth and the changing conditions of light in the Los Angeles basin. There is a newfound expansiveness in these works – a sense of space thick with air, smoke, and memory. Architectural silhouettes, distant hills, and blooming canopies appear both timeless and fragile, rooted in a city perpetually balancing between image and erasure.

Ultimately, Subrosa presents a vision of Los Angeles that is both loving and unsentimental. These are not merely landscapes; they are human terrains, charged with the complexities of presence, absence, and illusion. Armstrong does not dictate how we should feel, but rather invites us to linger – to question what is visible, what is hidden, and what stories unfold in the quiet spaces between.