SPIRO // USA
Lev L. Spiro is a lens-based artist whose work explores the duality of light and darkness, evoking the natural world as both a sacred space where beauty offers moments of solace, and as a starkly indifferent universe in which humans are left to seek meaning on their own. His images venture to navigate these paradoxes, finding grace in shadow and disquiet in the sublime, constituting meditations on survival, spirit, and the fragile poetry of existence.
His work has been featured in solo exhibitions for the A. Smith Gallery in Austin, TX and here at La Bottega Gallery in Laguna Beach, CA, as well as juried into many group exhibitions including Ph21 Gallery, Praxis Gallery, Southeast Center for Photography and the Center for Photographic Art. It’s also been featured in publications including Dodho Magazine, Shadow & Light Magazine, F-Stop Magazine, What Will You Remember?, Art Ascent Magazine (Gold Artist, August 2025 and June 2021), All About Photo, and Black + White UK.
Lev teaches the fine art photography courses “The Artful Garden” and “Story & Emotion in the Natural World” for Santa Fe Workshops.
CURRENT EXHIBITION
ELEMENTAL · THIN PLACES
La Bottega Gallery proudly presents returning artist Lev L. Spiro with his dual photographic exhibition Elemental · Thin, a meditation on the natural world as both sacred and untamed.
ELEMENTAL
The primordial landscapes of Iceland and Patagonia overwhelm with their sheer scale and volcanic, glacial wildness. Elemental and untouched, they radiate a fierce, rugged beauty which feels both menacing and enlivening.
“For the Elemental series, amidst this unspoiled ancient terrain, I was captivated by the darkness and mystery of these landscapes, and entranced by their unexpected textures and shadows. Here, the natural world appears both as a sacred space, where beauty offers moments of solace, and as a starkly indifferent universe in which we’re left to seek meaning on our own. The images venture to reconcile these paradoxes, finding grace in shadow and disquiet in the sublime.”
“This exploration of nature’s power and stillness led me inward to the more intimate spiritual terrain of the series Thin Places. This series grew out of conversations with my father, a religious man despite his breaking a sixteen-generation chain of rabbis to become a psychiatrist. Before he passed in 2023, I confided in him that my deepest feelings of spirituality never occurred in the practice of religious observance, but rather in the embrace of the natural world, in these Thin Places, where time seems to slow, light shifts, and something within me resonates beyond consciousness.”
— Lev L. Spiro
THIN PLACES
Thin Places are what the ancient Celts named rare locales where the separation between our earthly world and another, spiritual world becomes hazy and indistinct. They’re places where one feels touched by the otherworldly, a feeling not necessarily transmitted by our known senses.
Lev is also known for his work directing over 165 television episodes, pilots and features, including Emmy-award winning series such as Orange is the New Black, Modern Family, Weeds and Arrested Development. His films "Minutemen" and "Wizards of Waverly Place The Movie" won a Director's Guild nomination for Outstanding Directorial Achievement, and the Emmy Award for Outstanding Children's Program, respectively.
Lev lives in Los Angeles, California with his wife, writer/producer Melissa Rosenberg and their two dogs T. Beau and Luna, who often accompany him and make helpful suggestions as he makes images.
EXHIBITIONS & PUBLICATIONS
SOLO
November 2025 – Elemental & Thin Places, La Bottega Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA
September 2024 – Thin Places, A. Smith Gallery, Johnson City, TX
February 2022 – Night Creatures, La Bottega Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA
SELECTED GROUP
December 2025 – Monochrome, PH21 Gallery, Barcelona, Spain · Curators: Zsolt Bátori and Borbála Jász
February 2025 – Shades of Black & White, SE Center for Photography, Greenville, SC · Juror: Susan Burnstine
January 2025 – Landscapes, Praxis Gallery, Minneapolis, MN · Juror: Sandrine Hermand-Grisel
January 2025 – Dreamscapes, Decagon Gallery, Brooklyn, NY · Curator: John Manno
October 2024 – Landscape, PhotoPlace Gallery, Middlebury, VT · Juror: Ann Jastrab
March 2024 – Sanctuary, A. Smith Gallery, Johnson City, TX · Juror: Kevin Tully (Juror’s Award)
February 2024 – From A Seed, NYC4PA Gallery, New York, NY · Juror: Lee Ann White
January 2024 – A Generous Kingdom VIII, Verum Ultimum Art Gallery, Portland, OR · Curator: Jennifer Cutshall
August 2023 – The Streets, Praxis Gallery, St. Paul, MN · Juror: Rob Chakraborty
January 2023 – Black, White & Monochrome, SE Center for Photography, Greenville, SC · Juror: Michael Foley
January 2023 – Portrait: Self and Others, PhotoPlace Gallery, Middlebury, VT · Juror: Aline Smithson
December 2022 – Telling Tales, SE Center for Photography, Greenville, SC · Juror: Blue Mitchell
May 2022 – Dreams and Imaginings, PhotoPlace Gallery, Middlebury, VT · Juror: Susan Burnstine
November 2021 – Spot On #2, Dart Gallery, Denver, CO · Juror: Dr. Gwen Chanzit
September 2021 – Alternative Visions of the Natural World, Davis Orton Gallery, Hudson, NY · Curator: Karen Davis
April 2021 – Flora, SE Center for Photography, Greenville, SC · Curator: Wendi Schneider
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
Art Ascent Magazine, Featured "Gold Artist", Curator: Cinzia Franceschini, August 2025 Issue
Black & White Magazine, (Elemental) Portfolio, 2025 Issue
F-stop Magazine, Landscape 2025, February 2025
Shadow & Light Magazine, Featured Portfolio (Elemental), November/December 2024
All About Photo Magazine, Featured Article (Elemental), Editor: Sandrine Hermand-Grisel, October 2024
Dodho Magazine, Exploring the Ethereal – Thin Places by Lev L. Spiro, Curator: Maxim Panés, December 2023
Shadow & Light Magazine, B & W Issue, Featured Portfolio (Night Creatures), January/February 2023
Black + White Photography UK Magazine, Featured Artist (“American Connection”), Issue #262, March 2022
Portfolio Platform 2021/2022, Featured Portfolio (Fugitive Light), Midwest Center of Photography, December 2021
Art Ascent Magazine, Featured “Gold Artist”, Curator: Cinzia Franceschini, June 2021 Issue
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