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Joshua Liner Gallery presents Side Effects, an exhibition of new paintings by the Oakland-based artist Josh Keyes in his first solo show with the gallery. Side Effects will run from June 21 thru July 26, 2008.
Keyes’ fantastically altered landscapes reveal the intricacy of Earth
as a natural system, and the complexity of our responses to it.
Literally platforming nature, the artist’s satirical chunks of earth,
sea, and space painted on white fields painstakingly depict the plant,
animal, and human realms, all interacting and reacting. Deer, war
memorials, grass, hyenas, street signs, whales, fast-food containers,
and myriad other subjects are forced into intimate encounters atop
these tiny stages, intensifying their real and symbolic interactions.
Keyes’ platform strategy emphasizes the notion of Earth as a fragile
“garden planet” floating in space. It also critiques the human fallacy
that nature can be contained, a mythology of First World progress
divorcing civilization from nature.
Side Effects investigates the artist’s ongoing interest in
animal myths and folk tales, including Ovid’s Metamorphoses and
American Indian legends. Some of these stories convey cautionary
lessons about the importance of respecting nature. Elsewhere, Keyes’
“interlock” series uses an ingenious visual analog to show how the
built environment is directly linked with the natural world, also
displaying the artist’s fascination with scientific and textbook
drawings.
Another central topic is Keyes’ speculative imaginings about a
dystopian future, where the United States operates on the world stage
as a political and environmental tyrant (whether these works are
perceived as speculative or futuristic depends on the viewer’s point of
view). Here, Keyes’ sculpture and objects serve primarily as “sketches”
for thinking about form, space, and light in the execution of his
paintings. The installation A Thousand Points of Light,
a reference to the administration of George H W Bush, creates a new
American flag revealing the United States as both predator and prey in
the political and economic “oceans” of the world.
Details at http://www.joshualinergallery.com
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