Josh Reames
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles Gallery will present a unique installation combining new works by Josh Reames and Caroline Wells Chandler. The theme of our booth explores transformation—of art, the human form, communication, and history.
Josh Reames object-filled canvases reference a vocabulary of transient emojis, symbols, cartoon characters, text, and digital signs,untethered in space, that jettison all notions of hierarchies and disrupt the traditional function of formal space, structure, and narrative.In his paintings, depth, dimension, and the artist's hand are typically lost in translation from object to image, allowing the informationto exist as it might appear on a digital screen. He says: “I think the biggest influence of technology is the never-ending flow of images and information. The infinite blogrolls and Google image searches and Wikipedia binges have fundamentally changed the way we consume information. It's modern-day hieroglyphics—they're all signifiers being spilled into the picture frame. My imagery and content comes from what’s around me... I don't think of them as being more or less important than any other image or brushmark in a painting.” Josh Reames will present his third solo exhibition at Luis De Jesus Los Angeles in April 2017.
Caroline Wells Chandler’s brightly colored hand-crocheted works explore notions of queerness and sexuality as well as the art historical canon. His characters are radically queer, and his representations of gender declare queerness as the normative state. Hand crocheted by the artist in wool, the joyful figures graphic rendering emphasizes select details, like the double mastectomy FTM top surgery scars shown in luminous hues, which speak to a consistent theme of non-conformity within Chandler’s work, the literal blurring of lines between stroke, shadow, scar, and sex. The combination of the material, the technique of interlocking loops, and the highly graphic figuration places the work simultaneously in the rich tradition of painting, the lineage of expressive textiles spanning distant history to the present, and early 2-D pixel based video games—from The Bayeux Tapestry to Super Mario circa 1983. Chandler completed his foundation studies at the Rhode Island School of Design and received his BFA cum laude from Southern Methodist University in 2007. He has shown at numerous institutions including: Roberto Paradise, San Juan, PR; Lord Ludd, PA, 11R, New York; The Hole, New York; Zurcher Studio, New York; Vox Populi (PA), and the Stieglitz Museum, Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands; among others. The artist lives in Queens, NY.