03 Jul Hidden Beauty

When you visualize the city of Los Angeles, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Gleaming skyscrapers, maybe. Gridlocked traffic on endless highways, perhaps, or sandy beaches and abundant sunshine.

What you probably don’t think about is the Los Angeles River. But it’s there, all 50 miles of it, flowing from the San Fernando Valley through downtown to Long Beach. Almost all of it runs through concrete channels and beneath massive viaducts, barely visible to residents and visitors.

Los Angeles River Painting 62 – Edison Substation near Compton Creek | Oil on Canvas | 18 x 36 inches | 2021

Artist John Kosta is passionate about painting this river, which he calls “the ugly duckling of California landscapes.” He has made it his mission to discover and reveal the hidden beauty in the virtually unknown waterway. Kosta has created some 100 oil paintings to date in his LA River series, 25 of which were featured in a solo exhibition at the Hilbert Museum of California Art in Orange, California, in 2025.

Los Angeles River Painting 76 – Light Beneath | Oil on Canvas | 30 x 40 inches | 2023

“Most people don’t even know that Los Angeles has a river,” Kosta says, “and that’s why I want to tell its story. I want to show the tremendous beauty that can be found in things we overlook.”

LA River Painting 84 – Floating Away | Oil on Canvas | 30 x 30 inches | 2024

Kosta’s contemporary realist pieces convey the beautiful, eerie silence of the river, and what he calls the “straitjacket of concrete” that encases it. His works emphasize the haunting beauty of bold shadows he observes during the “golden hours” of early morning or late evening, as well as the quiet reflections he finds after rain increases the river’s flow.

After many years of largely ignoring the river, Angelenos have recently become more interested in revitalizing it — which Kosta, a former landscape architect, finds heartening. “I’m hoping that one day, parks will line the banks, with all kinds of neighborhoods and activities along the river,” he says. “And I’m hoping that my artwork will be part of making that happen.” The greater the awareness and appreciation for the river, he says, the greater the likelihood of meaningful ecological restoration.

Los Angeles River Painting 81 – Arrival | Oil on Canvas | 30 x 48 inches | 2023-2024

It was Kosta’s study of landscape architecture, in fact, that reignited his interest in the river. A lifelong California resident who grew up in the Los Angeles suburb of Paramount, he had often played near the river’s banks and peered at its levees through chain-link fences, wondering what danger lurked behind them. Years later, as a graduate student in landscape architecture at Cal Poly Pomona, he finally went beyond those fences while doing some reconnaissance for a class assignment.

Los Angeles River Painting 90 – Under Rosecrans Boulevard | Oil on Canvas | 36 x 36 inches | 2025

“At that time, it was illegal to go into the river,” Kosta says. “But I pried open part of a fence that somebody before me had cut. Suddenly, I was in this giant canyon that’s about 200 feet wide and 35 feet deep, and there was absolutely no one around. I was all by myself, and there was an eerie silence. Giant neo-Gothic bridges were soaring over me, and I could hear the water rushing through the low-flow channel. It was isolating and beautiful and emotional. From then on, it became the focal point of my art.”

LA River Painting 87 – Cesar Chavez Bridge | Oil on Canvas | 36 x 40 inches | 2024

Those massive bridges and viaducts that define the river are major players in Kosta’s paintings, too. “The river is really a marriage between landscape and architecture,” Kosta says. “And that’s my background. I’ve been painting for years, but I come to the river as both an artist and a landscape architect. So I see it and think of it differently.”

A prime example is Painting No. 87 in his river series, which depicts the Cesar Chavez Bridge in downtown Los Angeles. “The oversize porticos in ornate Spanish Colonial Revival style are remnants of a bygone era,” Kosta notes. And in Painting No. 76, The Light Beneath, Kosta focuses on the cool, shadowy world below the Hollywood Freeway. “Beams of light come through a narrow gap between the roadways and form geometric shapes on the concrete,” he says. “Polygons of gold and cream boldly assert their presence amid calming triangles of blue and turquoise.”

Los Angeles River Painting 96 – Sixth Street Viaduct | Oil on Canvas | 46 x 60 inches | 2025

Shadows and reflections always attract the artist’s attention — but capturing them is never easy. “Getting to the river to find its beauty is a hell of a lot of work,” Kosta says. “Much of it is inaccessible, so I do a lot of research to figure out where I can hike down into it, where I can park, and where I’ll be safe.

Then there’s the challenge of determining the best timing for his visits. Since the most interesting light is in the early morning — “when the shadows make their bold appearance onto the landscape and the infrastructure,” he says — he often rises before dawn to drive downtown.

Kosta also says that “The river is at its most beautiful when there’s about an inch of water in it, because then there are these quiet reflections of the bridges and the light. But that only happens right after a light rain, or a few days after a heavy rain. This is the life of an artist. It can be challenging to capture something that is wonderful and beautiful, but that’s what makes it worthwhile. It’s something that nobody has seen before.”

Los Angeles River Painting 65 – ABC Studios | Oil on Canvas | 30 x 30 inches | 2021

During his river visits, Kosta takes hundreds of photographs. He then returns to his studio and uses them as reference material for his large canvases. “Little paintings just aren’t going to cut it,” he notes.

Los Angeles River Painting 72 – Interchange | Oil on Canvas | 30 x 30 inches | 2022

After nearly 10 years of painting the river, Kosta has no plans to stop. “I’ll be painting the Los Angeles River until I die,” he says. Some of his most recent works are on view in a solo exhibition at VEFA Fine Art Gallery in Torrance, California, through September 13. His painting, Seventh Street Bridge, is also on view through September 13 as part of the California Art Club’s 115th annual Gold Medal Exhibition, hosted by the Hilbert Museum. The museum also displays one of his river paintings in its permanent collection.

LA River Painting 16 – To Imagine | Oil on Canvas | 24 x 30 inches | 2019

Ultimately, though, sales and exhibitions are not what motivate the artist. In addition to his hope of seeing the river revitalized, Kosta wants his paintings to change how people think about their surroundings. He puts it like this: “If these overlooked river scenes are incredibly beautiful in their own unique ways, what other beauty in our everyday lives are we not taking the time to see?”