PAC LA - "Broken Ground" Opening Reception at The REEF

Broken Ground

Opening Reception

The REEF

Saturday, November 22, 5:00 PM PST
Exhibit Runs Through February 7, 2026

Please join Photographic Arts Council Los Angeles(PAC LA) for Broken Ground, a new group exhibition featuring photographers Paula Chamlee, Austin Irving, Erinn Springer, and Margeaux Walter, curated by Ryan McIntosh. Opening on Saturday, November 22, 2025, the exhibition will take place at PAC LA’s new gallery space at The REEF, which will be hosting its free quarterly Open Studios event from 5:00 to 8:00pm in downtown Los Angeles (1933 South Broadway, Suite 430, Los Angeles, CA 90007). Join PAC LA for an opening reception during those same hours, and meet exhibiting artists Austin Irving and Margeaux Walter, who will be present to discuss their work

Margeaux Walter is a fine art and editorial photographer dedicated to building a layered scene whether it’s in a studio or a temporary site-specific installation in the environment. She received her MFA from Hunter College in 2014 and her BFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in 2006. She was awarded an ADC Cube in 2022 for her New York Time’s Work Friend series and has received multiple honors from Magenta Foundation Flash Forward, Center Santa Fe, Head On Photo Festival,Photolucida, Prix de la Photographie Paris, International Photography Awards, The Julia Margaret Cameron Award, and other organizations. She has been awarded artist-in-residence programs at Montalvo Arts Center, MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, Marble House Project, VCCA, JTHAR, Red Gate Gallery in Beijing, and BigCi in Bilpin, Australia (Environmental Award). In 2020 she was the recipient of the Sony Alpha Female Award.

She is represented by Winston Wachter Fine Art in New York City / Seattle, and Koslov Larsen in Houston, TX; and has participated in dozens of exhibitions at institutions such as MOCA in Los Angeles, CA; Hunterdon Art Museum in Clinton, NJ; The Center for Photography in Woodstock, NY; The Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, OH; Sonoma County Museum in Santa Rosa, CA; Tacoma Art Museum in Tacoma, WA; and the Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester, MA. Her work has been featured in publications including The New York Times, New York Post, Seattle Times, Boston Globe, Courrier International, and Blouin Art Info.

Austin Irving (b. 1984, New York, NY) is an internationally award-winning visual artist working with large-format analog photography. She received her BFA, graduating cum laude, from the Department of Photography and Imaging at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in 2006. Irving’s work has been exhibited in galleries, museums, and festivals in Hong Kong, India, Germany, Lithuania, France, Switzerland, Italy, Greece, Indonesia, Budapest, and across the United States. She has participated in exhibitions at institutions such as MOCA, The Irvine Fine Arts Center, The Florida Museum of Photographic Arts, Virginia Tech, The International Photography Symposium, and The Katonah Museum of Art.

Her work has been recognized by numerous organizations, including the Architecture Master Prize, Aesthetica Art Prize, MonoAwards, American Photography Competition, Budapest International Foto Awards, International Photography Awards, PX3 Paris Photo Prize, Tokyo International Foto Awards, Analog Sparks Awards, and the International Photography Competition at The New York Center for Photographic Arts. Her images have been featured in publications including The Los Angeles Times, Wired, Slate, Architectural Digest, LA Weekly, PDN, Art Ltd., Artillery, TimeOut NY, The Herald Tribune, The Huffington Post, Frontrunner, Artsy, Voyage LA, Yatzer, and Artweek LA.

Irving is based in Los Angeles, where she lives with her husband, daughter, and their dog, Kodak.

Erinn Springer (American, b. 1993) is a visual artist from Dunn County, Wisconsin. Her work explores temporality through cycles of the land, memory, and mortality. Working with her immediate family and extended community, her intimate portrayals of everyday life reflect upon the relationship between imagination and reality. Her debut monograph, Dormant Season, was published in 2023 to international acclaim, and was reviewed in The New Yorker as an honest and incandescent portrait of the rural Midwest. Her work has been featured in, and commissioned by, publications such as The New York Times, Die Zeit, Le Monde, NPR, The Wall Street Journal, Vogue, and others.

Paula Chamlee was born in 1944 on a farm in a remote area of the Texas Panhandle, eventually finding her way to a life in the visual arts. She came to photography from painting in the mid-1980s, and has since traveled extensively, making photographs both in the United States and abroad. She has been the recipient of several grants, including one from the Leeway Foundation for “Excellence in Photography.” Her photographs have been widely exhibited in museums and galleries and are held in numerous public and private collections across the United States and internationally. Her work is included in over 40 U.S. museum collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Cleveland Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; the Bancroft Library Collections, Berkeley; and the Library of Congress, to name a few. Seven monographs of her work have been published, with another forthcoming in 2026.

Chamlee works primarily with an 8x10-inch view camera, making large-format negatives. In addition to new digital works, she also makes drawings, paintings, assemblages, and collages in her studio in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where she lives and works.

Ryan McIntosh (b. 1984) is a Los Angeles-based artist, photographer, and curator. He received his MFA from Rhode Island School of Design in 2011, and BFA from University of Arizona in 2008. McIntosh photographs primarily in the natural landscape, with an ever-growing level of awareness towards the landscape and how it’s conveyed today to fit into the contemporary consciousness and evolving dialogue. His primary photographic concern is exploring mankind’s impact on the natural environment and the relationship humans have with the remaining wilderness on our planet. He works exclusively with the 8”x10” and 11”x14” large format view cameras, having committed himself to the masterful craft of producing only handmade silver chloride photographs in a traditional darkroom.

His debut book Tracy Hills was published by Radius Books in 2025. McIntosh is currently represented by Marshall Gallery, Santa Monica, CA.

Dormant Season 1 © Erinn Springer

Elevator Room, Carlsbad Caverns, Carlsbad, New Mexico, USA, 2010 © Austin Irving

Akureyri, Iceland, 2004 © Paula Chamlee

Top Image A River Runs Through It © Margeaux Walter