Joshua Tree Highlands Artist Residency is extremely honored to present an exhibition of Ed Ruscha works with the aim to raise funds for its nonprofit artist residency program. Established in 2007, JTHAR is located amidst the extraordinary natural beauty of Mojave Desert landscapes and the nearby Joshua Tree National Park. The program awards an international community of artists the gifts of time and space and encourages them to interact with their surrounding environment.

"In keeping with JTHAR'S philosophy, the prints that were chosen for the exhibition all have landscape as their central theme, even when implied as is the case of Pick, Pan, Shovel (1980) which depicts the tools used for prospecting gold in the California Gold Rush of 1848-1855.

The set of five lithographs, a collaboration between Hamilton Press and the artist, range loosely from 1978-2004. Like most of his work, they are a paean to the state and the city that became his home after he moved west in 1956.

Ruscha's association with Mixografia is reflected in a collaboration that spans over two decades. The partnership has yielded a significant body of work in Mixografia's unique process of creating three-dimensional prints on handmade paper.

Lastly, Wen Our For Cigrets n Never Came Back is the artist's unprecedented incursion in the sculptural field. It gives the artist the possibility to continue his text-based work in an unlikely medium. Melding the traditional lost wax process of bronze casting and his signature use of text, and working with Lapis Press, Ruscha has realized a latent desire to work in a three-dimensional form where his control over it has been delegated in great extent to others.

The bronze multiple and the works on paper selected for the exhibition ring Ruscha's talent and poetic sensibility to the fore confirming his status as one of the most significant contemporary artists." Alma Ruiz