Blink and you might miss Hope Gallery. Like a geode whose common outer surface hides crystal formations, the tiny storefront on Echo Park Avenue seems ordinary enough, until you peer inside. This month through June 10, Hope Gallery is host to Hot Coals Only, a stunning exhibition of photographs, video and other media by New York City-based artist Peter Sutherland. To coincide with the show, Seems has published a limited edition, 250-page exhibition catalogue.

Hot Coals Only is a visual study of life on the periphery that deftly blurs the line between art and cultural anthropology. Exploring the exhibition feels somewhat intrusive: Sutherland’s unselfconscious eye makes it easy to imagine that his belongings have been displayed without permission, transforming viewer into voyeur. The artifacts radiate intense personal importance, create an illusion of familiarity with the subjects and their environments, and raise questions about Sutherland, his process, and the exhibition as a whole which he was kind enough to answer.

The phrase “hot coals only” appears in one of your photographs. Why did you choose this phrase as the title of the exhibition?
I was in a rental car in San Diego and passed a park. I saw a cement garbage can with those words stenciled on it. It really caught my eye; I like the phrase because it sounds like something Lil Wayne might say or some reggae shout-out stuff. I parked and stepped out to get a photo of the can. There are some kids in the background of the photograph. One of them screamed, “FAGGOT!” I laughed while I shot a few more frames and drove away. Kids are such shit talkers. The exhibition title thing is hard. It’s gotta sound cool but not too cheesy; a lot of artist lift song lyrics. I also like the idea of things being hot, or burning, or burning rubber. It’s fitting somehow.

How would you describe the exhibition?
The work is printed small for a rather small space and personal feel. I’m starting to think that photography is gaining ground as a fine art form, but it’s also getting easier and more available, so I included some text, collages, a video piece and some stickers and patches. I wanted the show to have a druggy road trip feel with a record store aesthetic, so you will find some desert rats, smashed up cars, vandalized tents, reggae colors, crosses and Ozzy images. I enjoy sequencing images in books or exhibitions and had a lot of time to prepare the work, so I ended up including over 100 pieces. I really like Paul Graham; he also does the sequence-thing sometimes, but in a different way. The theme of the show is framed by the idea of a road trip. I like this and it’s something photographers have been doing for a long time—Robert Frank, Danny Lyon, Stephen Shore, and so on. I hope viewers get a sense of a journey and the pleasures, dangers, spiritual encounters you might find on the road.

What were some of your sources of inspiration?
I’ve been looking at a lot of work lately that is suggestive of counterculture lifestyles, cults, druggies, survivalists in the wilderness. One of my favorite blogs for this is The Acid Sweat Lodge. I really wanted to make work like this by immersing myself in situations, so for the past few summers I’ve been traveling around meeting people who live in caves, shelters, kids on 4-wheelers, etc. I also read The Road by Cormac McCarthy and got excited about the idea of the post-apocalyptic journey; Mad Max does it for me. I like the challenge of seeking these people and places out, and the idea of wandering is close. My dad was really cool and passed away a few years ago. He was really smart, creative and kind, but always seemed lost in his spirituality; so I saw him as this wandering child, even as a grown man.

What appeals to you about documentary photography?
I like that you never know what you’re going to get when you’re not setting up your shots, you’re just shooting and trusting your taste and your eye. I saw the film Gimme Shelter about 10 years ago; that has been the blueprint for everything. I love everything about that film — the approach to shooting it, the aesthetics, the subject matter, etc. I guess I’m really interested in people, so that is why I shoot the way I do. If I look back at older work, it’s riddled with unique characters with gleams in their eyes. I like the challenge of going out into the unknown and just hoping for the best. I think documentary work can have an interesting life, because it becomes more special as it gets older. For the past few years I’ve been shooting with a documentary approach, but I’m less interested in documenting something and more interested in using the photograph as you might use a drawing or painting, or using it to tell a story that is not specific to a time, place, or scene. Does that make sense?

Yes. What drew you to the individuals, objects, and scenes you photographed?
I’m not really sure. I broke up with my girlfriend of five years a while back, and since then I’ve just felt like driving around and checking things out. It’s also been a reaction to living in New York City for the past 11 years. I’ve headed west to shoot quite a bit and it’s been good—the sun looks different out here, the people are different and the landscape is much more interesting. I’ve been into sun-baked landscapes and dune buggies lately. There is a certain mythology surrounding the desert and mountains and I wanted to put my own spin on it. Everything in the show is based on things I visited as a kid, and it’s been interesting to investigate them as an adult.

How did you find your subjects, and were they generally receptive to being photographed?
I’m used to approaching people and asking them to be photographed. Quite often people are into it. Sometimes I get denied, but it doesn’t really matter either way. I take so many photos that it’s not worth stressing over it while I’m shooting because in most cases, I won’t know if it’s any good until the edit.

Was that a live rattlesnake?
That was the real deal, and it was in what I assume was the world’s sketchiest trailer park. That was taken during a shoot for VBS. If you get bit by one of those guys it will kill the tissue in the surrounding area, and you can die. I was raised to fear rattlesnakes, so it was especially frightening.

What projects are you working on now?
I’m working with a guy called Antoine Floch on a photo show for Paris called Road Beef. I’m also trying to curate a show and am rounding that up now. It’s called Victory Over Darkness and will hopefully include a good mix of artists from [the United States] and Europe. For the last two years I’ve been filming with Richard Prince; someday that will be a film. Otherwise I’m just messing around and shooting stuff day by day. And I want to thank Cali Dewitt and David Jacob Kramer from Hope Gallery and Nick Neubeck from Seems.

Hot Coals Only | Hope Gallery | 1547 Echo Park Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90026