Joshua Aster follows a very simple formula, one that
allows – indeed, requires – him to enliven his paintings with some sort
of mojo that makes them dance off the wall. Aster repeats a particular
unit myriad times within a small space (nothing in this show exceeded
two feet), organizing the repeated forms into a dense and rather
irregular skein, less a pattern than an accumulation. He renders these
dense, obsessive fields with breathtaking luminosity, thinning his oils
halfway to gouache and allowing them a certain – but not total – degree
of saturation. The compactness of the paintings themselves, the engaging
eccentricity of the schemata, the colors’ restrained vividness, add up
exponentially, resulting in paintings with a gemlike intensity and the
tang of hard candy; they fairly explode in your eye. (Sam Lee, 990 N.
Hill St., LA; closed. www.samleegallery.com)
This series of feather-weight sculptures are made from disassembled basket parts. The sculptures and their shadows are used as stencils to create compositions on linen. Oil paint is aggressively and directly applied with color allusions to night, mirrors and time elapsing. Flatness and space are pulling at each other.
Review: Alluring 'Little Conversations' with Joshua Aster at Sam Lee
Joshua Aster, "Spin Cycle," 2012, oil on linen, 19 x 18 inches. (Sam Lee Gallery, Los Angeles)
By Holly Myers
September 25, 2012, 3:12 p.m.
Viewed as an ever-expanding
aggregate, Joshua Aster’s paintings have the feel of so many pictorial
petri dishes, in which constituent elements of painting’s DNA — color,
tone, shape, pattern, texture — are assembled in varying combinations
and ratios and left to reproduce of their own accord. The result is a
nuanced, playful abstraction that grows ever more complex as its genes
continue to splinter and stew.
In “Little Conversations,” Aster’s
first exhibition with Sam Lee Gallery, he seems to have taken a step or
two back. He’s shifted from acrylic and watercolor to oils, reduced his
canvases to a modest, domestic scale not exceeding 24 inches, and
introduced a range of new shapes, made by tracing the outlines of common
objects found around the studio. Where many of the earlier works
appeared layered and translucent, these are flat and opaque, heavier of
step.
A similar air of curiosity prevails, however. They’re
simpler paintings, but paintings that shimmer with the promise of a new
acquaintance — appealing “little conversations,” in other words, that
leave one eager to see where Aster goes from here. Sam Lee Gallery, 990 N. Hill St., #190, Los Angeles, (323) 788-3535, through Oct. 6. Closed Sunday through Tuesday. www.samleegallery.com
Reception for the Artists: Saturday, September 15, 6 – 8 pm
Los Angeles—Sam Lee Gallery is pleased to present little conversations,
a solo exhibition of abstract paintings by Los Angeles-based artist
Joshua Aster. The artist’s recent oil paintings function as a type of
sieve in which color, line, and patterns are distilled to their essence
on the canvas. Nine works, measuring no more than 24x24 inches each,
are intimate in scale and elemental in their emphasis on straightforward
mark making. Aster employs ordinary objects such as wood off-cuts,
erector set parts, broken plates, and picture frames found in his studio
and intuitively arranges them on the canvas. He then traces their
outlines and finishes the work by coloring in between the lines with oil
paint, thus creating a familiar yet fresh pattern that resembles a
brightly colored jigsaw puzzle: a confident display of color, line, and
shape.
Born 1976 in New York, Joshua Aster received a master of
fine art degree from University of California Los Angeles (2007) and a
bachelor of fine art degree from Skidmore College in New York (1998).
He has been featured in exhibitions throughout the United States: solo
shows at Carl Berg Gallery in Los Angeles, Karl Hutter Fine Art in
Beverly Hills, and Utah Museum of Contemporary Art in Salt Lake City
(Utah). His work has also been included in various group exhibitions at
Roberts & Tilton, Daniel Weinberg Gallery, Michael Kohn Gallery,
PØST Gallery, Annie Wharton Fine Art, Taylor de Cordoba, and Pepin Moore
in Los Angeles, Angstrom Gallery in Dallas, and Plane Space in New
York. Aster is a founding member of the artist collective OJO, which
has had solo projects at MOCA, Los Angeles and LA>
Digital images are available for press purposes. Please email sam@samleegallery.com for reproduction requests.
The
Holodeck is a simulated reality facility on the USS Enterprise
NCC-1701-D, the primary setting of the American science-fiction
television series Star Trek the Next Generation. The characters on the
show use the Holodeck for a variety of applications, including
recreation, training, and problem solving. Although crew
members can program in the environment or scenario they wish to
inhabit, they cannot necessarily control their experience once inside.
Things go wrong with it pretty regularly. People get stuck inside and
can’t get out. Like art, the Holodeck is an ideal world in which
refreshment and conflict go hand in hand.
The HOLODECK is a group
show whose participants were each given a card from a deck of Star Trek
the Next Generation playing cards as a prompt for an artwork. Each
person was presented with the option to select a card with a specific
character/theme or to receive a card randomly from the deck. The
breakdown was about 50/50, specific vs. random. They could use the their
card as a source, an object, or the starting point for any manner of
conceptual strategy that suited them. The show will include a variety of
2, 3, and 4 dimensional media.