Nicolas Grenier
Chris Barnard
La Reine, 2020
Oil on canvas over panel
66 x 80 in.
Chris Barnard
Action Painting, 2020
Oil on linen
72 x 64 in.
Chris Barnard
Dainty. Innocent. Pure., 2019
Oil on canvas over panel
80 x 66 in.
Chris Barnard
Formal Training, 2020
Oil on canvas over panel
78 x 82 in.
Kambui Olujimi
Kiss Face, 2019
Ink and graphite on paper
22.5 x 21 in.
Kambui Olujimi
Kiss Face Twin, 2019
Ink and graphite on paper
29 x 24 in.
Kambui Olujimi
Under Tarped, 2019
From the series When Monuments Fall
Ink and graphite on paper
29 x 24.6 in.
Kambui Olujimi
Stereo 1-2, 2019
From the series When Monuments Fall
Ink and graphite on paper (diptych)
18 x 48 in.
Each panel is 18 x 24 in.
Kambui Olujimi
No Belts No Laces, 2017
From the Killing Time series
Metal, plastic, faux pearls, and copper leaf
28 x 48 x 1 in.
Kambui Olujimi
Christmas Bus, 2017
From the Killing Time series
Metal, plastic, crystals, and feathers
32 x 65 x 1 in.
Kambui Olujimi
Litmus Test, 2017
From the Killing Time series
Metal, plastic, faux pearls, and crystals
48 x 58 x 1 in.
Installation View of Unreachable Spring: Edra Soto
Edra Soto
3-23-17: Camo, Miller, UV, Rémy Martin 1738, Mickey’s, Bud Light lime, Heineken light, Hennessy, 2017
Risograph on paper
11 x 14 in
Edra Soto
From the Open 24 Hours series
Risograph on paper
Edition 2 of 10 (each)
11 x 14 in. each
Top Left: 3-17: Hennessy, Rémy Martin, D’Ussé, Jose Cuervo, Patron, Bud Ice, Seagrams, Paul Masson, 2017
Top Middle: 3-27-17: New Amsterdam, Wild Irish Rose, VS, Patron, Mickey’s Steel Reserve, Rémy Martin, Member’s Mark, 2017
Top Right: 1-1-17: UV Vodka, Hennessy, Patron, 1800 Reposado, Miller, Colt 45, New Amsterdam, Paul Masson, Boone’s, 2017
Lower Left: 1-6-17: Budweiser, Hennessy, Rémy Martin, New Amsterdam, Patron, Seagrams, 2017
Lower Middle: 1-16-17: Hennessy, Rémy Martin, Patron, Seagrams escape, Bud Ice, 2017
Lower Right: 1-7-17: Hennessy, Rémy Martin, Avion, Budweiser, Miller, 2017
Edra Soto
Open 24 Hours (Albright-Knox), 2018-2019
Found glass bottles of liquor, routed MDF, paint
96 x 30 x 48 in. each
Nicolas Grenier
What You Want, What We Want (II), 2017-2020
Edition of 5, 2AP
Digital pigment print
24 x 32 in.
Nicolas Grenier
Chamber, 2020
Edition of 5, 2AP
Digital pigment print
24 x 32 in.
Nicolas Grenier
Free Agents, 2019-2020
Edition of 5, 2AP
Digital pigment print
24 x 32 in.
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is very pleased to announce our participation in UNTITLED, ART Miami Beach OVR. The online fair will run from December 2-6, 2020, with a VIP Preview on Tuesday, December 1, starting at 11am EST / 8am PST. To attend the fair and enter the Online Viewing Rooms, please register here.
The Gallery will present three new limited editions by Nicolas Grenier, new paintings by Chris Barnard, selections from a new and ongoing series by Edra Soto, and new paintings and sculptures by Kambui Olujimi.
Nicolas Grenier creates artworks that translate theoretical and philosophical queries into visual and physical form in order to critique and reimagine political, economic, cultural, and social landscapes. For UNTITLED, ART Miami Beach OVR Grenier has created three new limited-edition prints. Recognizable for their meticulous crafting and seamless gradations of contrasting color and light, Grenier’s works use abstraction and design to create the illusion of logic and destabilize narratives of power, while signaling the imperative need to develop new systems that account for a plurality of visions, values, and perspectives. It's worth noting that these digital images and prints are not a by-product of his paintings; they are the primary step in his creative process and each has been generated over a period of weeks or months through a thoughtful and continuous revision of the drawing, design and color.
Chris Barnard’s paintings propose a reassessment of contemporary painting in which the evolution of painting is linked to moral progress. Over the course of his career Barnard has grappled with the connections and gaps between painting and contemporary socio-political events, focusing on the manifestations of American exceptionalism and its consequences on various cultures and environments—racial inequality, environmental degradation, state-sanctioned violence and war. Imagery often vies with formal aspects for the viewer’s attention, mirroring the inherent conflict between an artwork’s subject matter and its representation. In these new paintings, current events are set within an art historical context (a sculpture of Serena Williams towers over the French History Painting room at the Louvre and a climactic UFC moment is superimposed into a Joan Mitchell exhibition), alluding to the misogyny and toxic masculinity that pervade culture and society as a whole.
Interdisciplinary artist Kambui Olujimi challenges established modes of thinking that commonly function as “inevitabilities.” When Monuments Fall (2018-ongoing) is a series of paintings that examine the precarious position of Modernist monumentality and its atemporality. The work intersects with national conversations around the recontextualization, amendment, and removal of monuments, and uses veiling as a launch point within the work. The draped statue, waiting to be uncovered for the first time, is full of promise, potentially commemorating the achievements and values cherished by its community. The tarped statues is an abstracted mistake, waiting for erasure, and is estranged from its community. The Killing Time wall sculptures (2017-2019) function visually within the language of map making and migration while reflecting on the power to restrain and to restrict movement. Handcuffs, chains, jewelry, and other unexpected materials invoke ideas of mass incarceration, fetish, cartography, and spatial dislocation.
Edra Soto’s projects are motivated by civic and social actions, often prompting viewers to reconsider cross-cultural dynamics, the legacy of colonialism, and personal responsibility. Let Love Win (2020) is a personal stand for the current social justice movement and features portraits of hundreds of African American victims of police brutality embossed onto shaped metal—or votives, inspired by Mexican and Latin American milagros. Open 24 Hours (2016-ongoing) is a literal observation of the ground around the artist’s underserved neighborhood in Chicago. Since 2016, Edra Soto has turned her daily dog walks into what she has likened to urban beachcombing: collecting discarded liquor bottles. The artist strips her findings of their branded labeling and plays up the simple elegance of the bare bottles by displaying them on decorative panels inspired by the painted wrought-iron screens that commonly adorn homes in her native Puerto Rico. Open 24 Hours traces a long history of cultural marginalization, exchange, and revival, and explores notions of colonialism, migration, visibility and invisibility.
For further information and inquiries, please contact us at 310-838-6000, or email: gallery@luisdejesus.com.
Leilani Lynch, curator at The Bass Museum of Art in Miami selected a group of works to highlight as part of the virtual UNTITLED, ART Miami Beach art fair. Within her selection both Edra Soto and Kambui Olujimi's installation works were featured.
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce that Nicolas Grenier's painting From Our Position, Yours is a Mystery (2017), was acquired by the Musée D'Art Contemporain De Montréal, Canada. This work will also be show in upcoming group show, Des Horizons D'Attente, which will showcase the museum's 21 new aquisitions.
The gallery is pleased to announce that Nicolas Grenier is a fellow and part of the international artist residency at ZK/U Center for Art and Urbanistics. While he is there he will be working on a project based on a system allowing a paradigm shift toward a post-capitalist economic culture. At this stage he is working with a programmer to build a non-monetary exchange mechanisms, while also designing the architecture for a common pool of resources that could be shared between people in a small group, a neighborhood or a city.
The gallery is pleased to announce that Kambui Olujimi has received a 2020 Colene Brown Art Prize, which awards $10,000 to New York-based artists via BRIC.
Now in its second year, the award is underwritten by artist and former BRIC Board Member Deborah Brown and her sister Ellen Brown in memory of their late mother, Colene Brown, and is funded through the Harold and Colene Brown Family Foundation.
Drawings from Kambui Olujimi's series When Monuments Fall is currently on view at the gallery as part of the group exhibition Unreachable Spring through December 19, 2020.
The gallery is pleased to announce that Edra Soto has received the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant. The Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant is an unrestricted award in which $25,000 is granted to 25 different artists from throughout the United States. Selected artists are first nominated by artist peers and arts professionals from throughout the United States and then chosen through a multi-phase jurying process, which this year was conducted virtually. The 2020 artist cohort represents a wide range of creative approaches and backgrounds as well as ethnicities, ages, and geographic locations—further enumerated below. In addition to the financial award, grantees also gain access to a network of arts professionals, who can provide consultations on career development and financial management.
Edra Soto is currently part of group show, Unreachable Spring, currently on view.
