Dreamland Chemical Corp., Painting by Harold Fox

A dystopian vision of Los Angeles reveals the ironic divide between fantastic “dream machine” imagery of travel brochures and the reality of industrial pollution in a romanticized environment. The creation of artifice is symbolized in the figure of the modeling woman and her photographer on the periphery of the scene. In popular Californian imagery, factory pipes pumping sludge into the rivers, smoke filled skies, and rows of migrant workers searching for their own California Dream, do not exist. Harold Fox’s painting expands the borders of the frame to encompass Nathanael West-like observations on the state of the Golden State.

Oil on Masonite. Signed by artist. Custom frame.

Artist Harold Fox worked for many decades as a graphic designer before turning his skills to fine art. Combining his interests in sociology, history, and ethnography, Fox paints images of a Los Angeles caught between stark reality and surrealistic fantasy. A former student photographer and filmmaker, his work has been shown at Cal State Long Beach, San Francisco Coast Guard Headquarters, among other places.

Dimensions with frame: 28 1/4 H x 24 1/4 W