Osceola Refetoff

Osceola Refetoff’s interest is in documenting humanity’s impact on the world – both the intersection of nature and industry, and the narratives of the people living at those crossroads. His images exist within traditional means – landscape, portraiture, travel, editorial – and are variously produced using film, digital, infrared, and pinhole exposures. Thus, despite his documentarian impulses and the fact that his images deliberately depict ordinary, even mundane, subjects; he trains on them a nuanced vision, often yielding surreal, even dreamlike images. His process generally happens “in camera,” at the moment of capture, in a kind of alchemical reaction that transforms the external world into something both realistic and magical.





Refetoff’s early influences were the great mise-en-scène directors Lang, Welles, Kubrick, and Melville. Today, his motion picture background informs his approach to constructing visual narratives. Framing meticulous compositions in depth, he uses the many cameras he carries to render not only how a place looks, but how it feels to be there. As he shifts between stylistic modes to build layered, multidimensional histories, what links all aspects of hi...

MFA – New York University Graduate Film
–Warner Bros Fellowship Award
–Paulette Goddard Scholarship
BA – Duke University – Durham, NC
Université de Paris III (Sorbonne Nouvelle)

SOLO EXHIBITIONS:
High & Dry – MOAH Museum of Art & History – Lancaster, CA – 2018​
It's a Mess Without You – Porch Gallery - Ojai, CA – 2017
Pinholes & Infrareds – Chungking Studio – Los Angeles, CA – 2016
Painting by Scott A. Trimble/Photos by Osceola Refetoff, Curated by Shana Nys Dambrot – CKS – 2016
Chasing Pavement – Inglewood Public Library – 2015
Museum Tour – Venice Institute of Contemporary Art/Torrance Art Museum
Magic and Realism – with Bill Leigh Brewer, Curated by Shana Nys Dambrot – CKS/MoPLA – 2015
Flirting with Disaster – Chungking Studio – Los Angeles, CA – 2014
High & Dry: dispatches from the land of little rain – Gallery 825 – W. Hollywood – 2014
Dust to Dust – Chungking Studio – 2013

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS:
Out There – Gallery 825/West Hollywood Pride Month – West Hwd, CA – 2017
The Savage Sleep – winner Best Cinematography – Fine Art Film Festival – Venice, CA – 2017
M.A.R.S. Festival – Art Share LA – Los Angeles, CA – 2017
Make America – Los Angeles Art Association/Gallery 825 – West Hollywood, CA – 2017
Desert Island – Desert X Parallel Program – Coachella Valley Art Center – Indio, CA – 2017
Desert Waters – Desert X Parallel Program – Marks Art Center – Palm ...