Tipping Point

Janet Milhomme is a Los Angeles-based photographer whose work is influenced by a career in journalism and an abiding interest in storytelling. While her subjects are varied and her portfolios distinct—spanning architectural, documentary, conceptual and pop images—her common focus is on technical precision, artistic composition, and thematic expression.

     Milhomme’s works have been published internationally in newspapers, magazines and books. She has received awards from Women in Photography International (WIPI), the Julia Margaret Cameron Awards for Women Photographers for three successive years, and was a 2020 Photo L.A. Top 20 Finalist.  Her museum credits include the Metropolitan Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan; the Huntington Library and Museum, San Marino, CA; the Griffin Museum of Photography, Boston, MA; the Palm Springs Art Museum, CA; the Museum of Art and History, Lancaster, CA; and the Santa Paula Art Museum, CA. She has participated in numerous curated and juried international exhibitions, including the Biennial of Fine Art & Documentary Photography in Barcelona, Spain; Zona Maco in Mexico City; the Chania International Photo Festival on the Island of Crete; galleries in Venice, Athens, Rome, Budapest, Barcelona, Tokyo, Mexico City, and Glasgow; and nationally in galleries in New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Texas, Minnesota, Colorado, and Oregon, and numerous venues in California.  Her works are held in private collections throughout the U.S., Canada, Mexico and Europe.

Dama Gallery is pleased to present Before the Fall, a group exhibition featuring artists working across photography, painting, collage, portraiture, landscape, abstraction, and geometric form. This exhibition examines the fragile interdependence between nature, humanity, and the systems we construct to survive within it.

Before the Fall reflects on a collective sense of suspension, an awareness that balance is never guaranteed and that harmony, once disrupted, can unravel quickly. The works in the exhibition explore moments of connection and fracture, where ecosystems, civilizations, and individuals intersect. Rather than presenting collapse as spectacle, the exhibition lingers in the tension that precedes it: the quiet instability, the warning signs, the unresolved questions.

Through varied visual languages and materials, the artists address the relationship between people and place, structure and vulnerability. Landscapes become psychological terrain; portraits suggest shared responsibility; abstract and geometric forms echo systems both natural and man-made. Together, these works create a layered narrative that underscores how deeply entwined all life remains.

While conceptually rigorous, Before the Fall is grounded in accessibility. The exhibition invites viewers to recognize themselves within the work; to reflect on stewardship, coexistence, and the consequences of imbalance. It asks not only what may be lost, but what might still be preserved through awareness and care.