NYAB Event - Josh Agle (Shag) “All My Bones”

Josh Agle (Shag) “All My Bones”

Jonathan Levine Gallery (557C W 23rd St.)

This event has ended.

Jonathan LeVine Gallery presents All My Bones, a series of new works by Southern California-based artist Josh Agle (Shag), in what will be his fifth solo exhibition at the gallery.

With a distinct style influenced by mid-century modern design, Agle paints with a keen attention to figure and form. Depicting stylized subjects in affluent settings he invites viewers into a playful yet satirical world, confronting themes of fame, youth, revelry and excess. With a paradoxical central narrative influenced by Biblical stories, All My Bones epitomizes the artist’s retro aesthetic and expands upon his sophisticated iconography.

Rendered with vividly saturated colors, crisp shapes and fluid line work, Agle’s works sardonically look at consumption and consumerism. His extravagant subjects are surrounded by lavish architecture, fashion and furnishings but are apathetic toward their opulence, predominately portrayed as expressionless and emotionally detached.

The pieces in All My Bones were inspired by a book of Old Testament stories Agle had as a child. He recalls, “What seemed like straightforward morality plays told in simple language and pictures meant for children turned out to be complex, grotesque and ethically confusing stories when I read them in the Bible as I got older.” In this series demonic characters, blazing flames and kingly lions are placed within the hedonistic atmosphere of a Shag painting with the goal of reinterpreting these fables in such a way that will keep the imagery as morally ambiguous as the source material.

Josh Agle, also known as Shag (a contraction of the last two letters of his first name and the first two letters of his last name) was born in 1962 and is currently based in Los Angeles California. Agle has had numerous gallery exhibitions in the Unites States, Europe, Japan and Australia. His work has been featured in museums such as the Laguna Art Museum in California, The Andy Warhol museum in Pennsylvania and the Naples Museum of Contemporary Art in Italy. Agle’s exhibitions have been reviewed by The New York Times’ critic Ken Johnson and Roberta Smith. His artwork has been published in several books, been the subject of a documentary film, as well as a musical. In 2009, The Shag Store, a boutique and gallery dedicated to his art, opened in Palm Springs.