Meat Market Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of photographs by Dustin Aksland, entitled Under the Western Freeway.

As a teenager, photographer Dustin Aksland spent summers driving through California’s Central Valley for his father’s delivery business. Gazing at the region’s social landscape through box-van windows sparked a fascination with the hypocrisies of American life that form the basis of his current practice. Today, these thoughts take form in the images selected for Under the Western Freeway, a collection of photographs taken alone during road trips through the West. For this series, the artist, armed with a camera and an eye for the the sublime beauty found in the incongruities of American society, captures images that seem to suggest narratives of a somewhat Steinbeckian nature: a hauntingly beautiful California landscape riddled with loneliness and plagued by class struggle.

Opening: Friday, April 4, 2008 6-8:30pm Meat Market Gallery is located at 1636 17th Street NW, Washington, DC 20009 P: 202.328.6328 E: info@meatmarketgallery.com W: meatmarketgallery.com Hours of Operation: Wednesday-Saturday 12-6pm, Sunday 12-3pm