KEN GONZALES-DAY

Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is very pleased to announce KEN GONZALES-DAY: Sharing Space, an exhibition of new photographs on view in Gallery 2 from November 5 through December 17, 2022. An opening reception will be held on Saturday, November 5, from 5:00 to 8:00 pm.   

Ken Gonzales-Day’s recent body of portraits includes creative Angelenos, among others—artists, actors, arts professionals, dancers, models, trainers, writers, and others—representing a multitude of backgrounds and communities. The series began in August of 2020 when Gonzales-Day set up an informal portrait studio at home. Sitters were invited to pose both with and without a mask. The artist used social media to find subjects willing to participate in the project, which was a response to the isolation brought on by the pandemic. While initially some of the sitters needed the work or headshots, it eventually became a way of sharing time, meeting people, and contemplating our presence within the world, our outward presentation and perception.

Gonzales-Day found that each of the portrait sessions was profound in its own way, a much-needed channel of connecting with others in challenging times. For the artist, this series captures a moment in our collective lives. It is at once a meditation on the fragility of life, the beauty and resilience of the creative community, and our shared desire to keep making work, to build up and celebrate one another. 

Ken Gonzales-Day’s interdisciplinary and conceptually grounded photographic projects consider the history of photography, the construction of race, and the limits of representational systems. Gonzales-Day has received awards from the California Community Foundation, COLA, Creative Capital, and Art Matters. Fellowships include The Rockefeller foundation in Bellagio, Italy; The Terra Foundation in Giverny; The Getty GRI; Smithsonian SARF and SAAM fellowships; and the Guggenheim Fellowship in Photography in 2017. Gonzales-Day holds the Fletcher Jones Chair in Art at Scripps College. In 2018, he was the subject of a solo exhibition at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. His exhaustive research and book Lynching in the West, 1850-1935 (Duke Univ. Press, 2006) led to a re-evaluation of the history of lynching in the U.S. The book shed light on the little-known history of frontier justice and vigilantism.