Karen Ballard| Where the Light Stays Exhibition Opening

This selection of work provides the viewer an insider’s look into the iconic, quirky, Los Angeles neighborhood of Venice, California (a.k.a Venice Beach) long known as a bohemian haven, artistic hub, and a public beach for all. Karen first visited Venice at age 17, already a photographer, making a few frames during that eye opening trip and vowed one day to return. Twenty-five years later, she made Venice her home and began a long-term documentary project exploring this vibrant, distinctly American enclave. Over the past decade and a half, Venice has seen a rapid transformation while still striving to hold onto its roots.

“The light in Venice, CA ebbs and flows like the ocean itself. At times searing, radiant, all familiar to the iconography of southern California. A dreamscape where one comes to get lost, or simply have a look around at the layered strangeness that makes this legendary playground so memorable. Some stay for a few minutes, a few days, a few years or a lifetime. Venice exists in a state of perpetual transition —between beauty and grit, youth and transformation, memory and motion. What remains however, is the light, in a place uniquely American, unbent by shifting tides or the shadows that come and go.” --Karen Ballard/2025

KAREN BALLARD is an award-winning photojournalist, documentary, and movie/television still photographer based in Los Angeles. From Hollywood sets to remote corners of the world, she is driven by a deep sense of story, approaching each frame with the curiosity of a journalist, and the intimacy of a portrait artist.

Before moving west, Karen was based in Washington, D.C. for 16 years. An accomplished photojournalist, she has covered major stories at The White House, on Capitol Hill, and internationally in the Middle East, Asia, and beyond. In the spring of 2005, Ballard’s work and her interest in film production caught the attention of Director Steven Spielberg, who hired her as his unit photographer for the Academy Award-nominated film “Munich.”

From key art portraits to on set action, Karen has shot over 20 feature films working with cultural icons including Daniel Craig, Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Julia Roberts, Sylvester Stallone, Mark Wahlberg, and Reese Witherspoon. Credits range from the James Bond film “Quantum of Solace” to “Jack Reacher”, “Patriots Day”, “The Expendables”, “Hemingway & Gellhorn”, to “Home Again”; streamers include “Hack’s” and “The Morning Show”, among others. Her clients have included Warner Bros, Paramount, Sony, Lionsgate, HBO, Apple TV, Netflix, Time, Newsweek, and National Geographic. Ballard’s work has been featured on movie posters and published in mainstream media worldwide for over three decades.

Karen has photographed six Presidential Inaugurations, has worked in more than fifty countries, and has work in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and the Smithsonian. In the fall of 2024, a 44-print portfolio of her Venice project was selected for a solo exhibition at the prestigious documentary festival, “Visa Pour L’Image” in Perpignan, France. In 2025 she had solo exhibitions at the Xposure Festival in Sharjah, U.A.E. and “Where the Light Stays” opened at the Leica Gallery in Los Angeles. This is her first solo show in Washington, D.C.

Exhibit Dates

April 9 - July 5, 2026

Exhibition Hours

Monday - Saturday 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM

Sunday 12:00 PM – 5:00 PM.

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