Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is very pleased to present Chicago-based artist JOSH REAMES first solo exhibition in Los Angeles, titled #PAINTING, on view from February 22 through March 29, 2014. An artist's reception will be held on Saturday, February 22^nd, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. 

Josh Reames new body of work, #PAINTING, considers abstraction and painting in relation to the internet, and is informed by the strange, new space where a majority of viewership takes place online through blogs and websites. In these new paintings, depth, dimension, and the artist's hand are typically lost in translation from object to image, allowing the information to exist as it might appear on a digital screen. 

Reames' conceptual framework functions as a kind of filtration device for cultural byproduct and its attending relativism, literally flattening disparate images and references and thereby removing their hierarchy. In this evanescence, a compendium of signs, text and symbols (emoji, letters, text, and numbers--doubling as marks, sprayed or squeezed), objects (cigarettes, fried eggs, bombs, tennis balls), and cultural icons (Marge Simpson, hot dogs, Vulcan greeting) are all flattened to the same-level composition.

  Josh Reames, Back and Forth, 2013, acrylic on canvas, 40 x 36 in (102 x 92 cm)

Reames' stream of metadata abstraction could be translated in this way:

#relativity #IRL #ubiquity #girl #animation #zztop #cruisin #sports #abstraction #URL #emoji #warhol #instagood #iphonesia #L.A. #simpsons #breakfast #figurepainting #XXX #chat #bones #paper #me #picoftheday #gardening #vacation #gumby #dialogue #blogspot #wildwest #academia #millenial #agentorange #tropix #billclinton #yellow #tbt #shopping #psychedelics #sextme #composition #aliens #mine #bigbiz #okay #overexposure #nudes #startrek #summer #deef #joerogan #vegas #escapism #midnight #punksnotdead #idealist #A.I. #snowflake 

In fact, Reames' paintings are made to confuse this space. He wants the content and information in his paintings to be understood the same way one would understand a Google image search--a field in which images and forms are constantly shifting and any authoritative meaning is nearly impossible to pin down. This approach constitutes a way of viewing reality that is synonymous with our contemporary experience of spending nearly 24 hours per week (the current average for American adults) blog-surfing or scrolling through the web.

Josh Reames (b. 1985, Dallas, Texas) lives and works in Chicago. He earned his MFA (2012) from the Art Institute of Chicago and BFA (2007) from University of North Texas. He has exhibited in a number of institutions and galleries, including LVL3, Devening Projects, Andrew Rafacz, Hyde Park Art Center, and the Union League Club, Chicago; The Hole, Muelensteen, and Monya Rowe Gallery, New York; Circuit 12 Contemporary, Dallas; and Dittrich & Schlechtriem, Berlin, among others. In 2012, Reames was artist-in-residence at Ox Bow (funded by Joan Mitchell Foundation) in Saugatuck, Michigan.