PRJCTLA is pleased to present Los Angeles-based artist Daniel Hawkins in the gallery’s first solo exhibition with the artist. Desert Lighthouse: V is the third exhibition in the Desert Lighthouse Trilogy and marks the five year anniversary of the Desert Lighthouse, a 50ft fully-functioning lighthouse in the Mojave Desert near Hinkley, CA (the site of PG&E’s infamous Hexavalent Chromium spill) just miles from an active military test range.

Prior to the Desert Lighthouse’s initial illumination in 2017, Hawkins’ project has generated multiple exhibitions-worth of artifacts ranging from backdrop-scaled landscape paintings, faux-public sculptures, LED video wall displays, performances, publications and a documentary film of the artist’s attempts to deploy lighthouse “prototypes” -- finally culminating with the permanent installation of a functioning 50-ft lighthouse in the Mojave desert.

After the DL's completion, Hawkins’ project was the subject of a documentary produced by The Discovery Channel, as well as a separate forthcoming media collaboration between the artist and VICE Media examining several of Hawkins’ larger undertakings, including a climbing expedition with the goal of summiting a topographically flat mountain, a mockumentary about his attempt to recruit actor Val Kilmer for that expedition, and his ongoing effort to reconstruct the Hoover Dam at a one-to-one scale in piecemeal fragments scattered across the landscape.

DLV presents a selection of artifacts and ephemera chronicling the Desert Lighthouse saga,
including:

◦cast aluminum replicas of the lighthouse capstone (which consists of scale miniature of the complete lighthouse),
◦a curated suite of photographs of the desert installation, simulating the landscape's shifts in light and color over a 24 hour period,
◦hand-pulled intaglio investment certificates,
◦a large photorealist painting depicting a make-shift memorial at the lighthouse,
◦a full-scale active “pathfinder” sculpture used to design, develop and test past and future lighthouse improvements to demonstrate their adherence to zoning regulations,
◦newly edited drone footage of the lighthouse and its environs, and much more…

DLV is the first gallery exhibition of Desert Lighthouse materials since the project's completion and presents the most comprehensive overview of the Desert Lighthouse project to date, as well as offering a rare view of the remote desert installation for a Los Angeles audience.

Daniel Hawkins (b. 1987) lives and works in Los Angeles. His work was previously the subject of one-person exhibitions at: CMay Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2020); UC Riverside’s Culver Center for the Arts, Riverside, CA (2014); UC Irvine Center for Contemporary Art, Irvine, CA (2014); and Las Cienegas Projects, Los Angeles, CA (2009). Additionally, he has exhibited work at numerous venues including: Denk Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2020, 2019); San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center, San Francisco, CA (2019); ODD ARK LA, Los Angeles, CA (2019); FLAX at Tin Flats, Los Angeles, CA (2018); Jancar Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2015); PØST, Los Angeles, CA (2010); UCLA’s New Wight Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2008); and more. He has studied art at UCLA, Yale’s Norfolk Summer School of Art, and UC Irvine. Apart from his solo work, Hawkins is involved in a range of collaborative multimedia and curatorial projects, most recently curating “Marnie Weber, Unreal Paradise: Collage Works from 1992 to 2022” at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas.