THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS : Gallery Opening

Opening on February 6th, 2026 at La Luz de Jesus Gallery, located at 4633 Hollywood Blvd within Soapplant Wacko, a duo exhibition Two Americans  are two curated collections: Thoughts and Prayers by Wayne Martin Belger and Black Diamonds by Alanna Airitam. Thoughts and Prayers is an ongoing photography and mixed media project and performance. Photographer Wayne Martin Belger takes a critical look at American gun culture through the literal lens of a “weapon” camera. Black Diamonds is an ongoing project by photographer Alanna Airitam documenting the living members of various Black outlaw motorcycle clubs. This exhibition will primarily exhibit the first chapter of this series, showcasing portraits of members of the Chosen Few. Two Americans is a direct reference to the longstanding history of tightly curated exhibits in museums like MoMA, with the famous exhibit, Fifteen Americans, which take a holistic view of modern art in the Mid-Century. Other similar exhibits would follow with the lead curator, in which all the artists were white. Thirty Americans would later debut from the Rubell Museum and travel as both a direct response to this history and a celebration of Black excellence in the arts. Both artists, in their study and activism, add deep perspectives into this narrative by reframing the title into something wholly political. In an era where this administration is actively stripping artists' ability to exhibit in our nationally funded museums for similar narratives, La Luz de Jesus Gallery is PROUD to exhibit these two prolific and talented photographers.

Wayne Martin Belger shoots on a four by five format using an entirely handbuilt camera manufactured from metals salvaged from F-16 aircraft parts, bullet casings, machine gun sites, American flags and buckles from White Supremacist groups and dirt from Columbine and Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church mass shootings. The project is externally known as the 2nd Amendment Project to obscure the critical nature to his subjects. Belger travels to major meetups, conferences and other gatherings to solicit these photographs under the guise of an ambiguous project. He notes how his lack of specificity on top of his presence as a white man is consistently perceived as being a part of the ingroup rather than the deeply journalistic and performative persona he puts on to collect these images and materials. 

Thoughts and Prayers dives deep into American gun culture as one perpetrated by supremacy and hate, deepened by fear and identity politics. Millions of guns are bought and sold today, with estimates around one and a half guns per citizen, with many states having cash and carry laws that do not include documenting purchasers or background checks. The pervasion of gun culture evolved quickly to be one of in-group markers for extremists and supremacy groups. By both presentation and sheer volume, guns are not means of protection of communities or individuals but protection of American exceptionalism, capitalism, and institutional racism. In this exhibition, thirteen real guns are presented in the same emblematic fashion, but welded shut to be inoperable. Each photograph is blown up and printed across a grid of varied toned photographic paper, to which each subject is posed in the same fashion as the famous image of Patty Hearst standing in front of the Symbionese Liberation Army flag with a firearm. Bible verses, poetry and other historic commentary is scribed between the stripes of the American flag, being the literal subtext that supports the ideology that supports gun culture. 

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