Attuned to beauty in tragedy, Greg Ito’s paintings and installations operate like quasi film-sets, though pared-down, minimal, and dreamlike—emphasizing mood and symbols rather than crystalized detail. Ito’s landscapes are overlaid with a personal lexicon of symbols: burning candles, keyholes, windows, snakes, moons, suns, and all sorts of critters, allowing the incorporation of each to accumulate perspectives and open portals of an imagined reality. Alluding to themes of love and loss, hope and tragedy, his work juxtaposes the autobiographical (past and present) with the aspirational (future). Ito’s paintings operate as self-portraiture and reflect upon the evolving narrative of life in Los Angeles—beyond the freeways, desert plants, and swimming pools.