‘This project evolved after I went for “recreational purposes” to the gun range after work,’ says artist Jane Hilton of the exhibition ‘LA Gun Club’, at New York's Palo Gallery until 23 March 2024. ‘I was doing a commercial job in LA, and my assistants asked me to join them. It didn’t occur to me until I got there, that I would be using “live” ammunition. I was given an AK47, and my arm was shaking… I was completely thrown by the whole thing.’
English photographer and filmmaker Hilton has been documenting American culture for 25 years, in work concerned primarily with the grey area between social acceptability and legality. After her experience at a gun range – where visitors shoot live ammunition at target posters with their choice of weapon – she planned to return to photograph personal gun collections, before creatively taking a different path.
