December 2019
Kara Joslyn at M+B
On view: November 16–December 21, 2019 At M+B in West Hollywood, it may not be obvious at first that Kara Joslyn’s prime reference points are 1950s paper crafts. Her moody grayscale paintings have sharp lines and illusionistic shadows that feel aptly contemporary in our digital age. The exhibition, Tragic Kingdom, elicits the seminal No Doubt record, yet pulls us towards present day horrors. The album title itself was meant to be a play of words on Disneyland’s Magic Kingdom, and Joslyn seems…
Find out more »December 2020
Lavar Munroe at M+B
In Lavar Monroe’s “Father Alone” — a title taken from an Ike and Tina Turner song — the artist paints sinewy figures with glowing red skin, blending in a wide array of found objects to build densely filled and patterned surfaces: pearls, mouse traps, dollar bills, sandwich bags, bubble gum, and even a blunt are attached to his painted canvas. Munroe refers to the red figures as “Redbones” describing them in the press release as referencing “a harmony and sameness…
Find out more »April 2023
Katelyn Ledford at M+B
For her first solo show with M+B, Katelyn Ledford examines our shared constructed world made up of whirring, emotionally-charged images. Ledford’s still life paintings and deconstructed portraits are purposefully nonspecific, evoking universal and personal experiences alike. The artist employs trompe-l’œil, photorealism, and impasto in her works to play with the relationship between the artist and the viewer with humorous and absurdist results: Authenticity and artifice begin to blend together. Welcome! (2023) reveals several of the signature tricks up Ledford’s sleeve.…
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