This inaugural presentation of renowned photographer Anthony Hernandez’s newest project evocatively explores Americans’ penchant for discarding what we no longer want through images of buildings, people, and the land east and northeast of Los Angeles, California. It examines, through Hernandez’s eyes, what it looks like from the other side of development, when developers and owners alike walk away from their endeavors, often midstream. This exhibition finds its roots in the devastation wrought by the recession of 2008, when people in droves were faced with mortgages and loans that abruptly had come to be valued far higher than their properties, and it suddenly became easier to let the banks repossess properties and start over somewhere else.

Despite its difficult topic, Discarded: Photographs by Anthony Hernandez does not succumb to ugliness. The artist’s large prints of deserted houses and empty fields along the Interstate 10 corridor east of Palm Springs and amidst the southern reaches of California’s Central Valley lure us in with their meticulously rendered balance, color, and detail. The subject may be challenging, but the results resonate with a strange, quiet beauty. The dry light of the region exudes a clarity perfect for photography.