NYAB Event - James Charles “Monstro Eyegasmica”

James Charles “Monstro Eyegasmica”

Joseph Gross Gallery

This event has ended.

J​oseph Gross Gallery presents M​onstro Eyegasmica,​a solo exhibition of new paintings by James Charles. Charles is well known in the San Francisco Bay Area for his colorful statements on consumer culture. He will début a series of large scale vibrant paintings inspired by pop culture, alongside his signature detailed work on banknotes.

Monstro Eyegasmica i​s a​culmination of James Charles’ new series​of vivid, large mixed media paintings in which the artist​combines illustration, painting, and collage­style composition to create works that a​re at once familiar and unsettling. Charles’ brand­jamming artwork irreverently combines pop culture characters with traditional iconography and embodies a sarcastic sense of humor.​His fluorescent painting A​xis Bold as McLove​is based on the image on the album cover of A​xis: Bold As Love,​released by The Jimi Hendrix Experience in 1967. Charles’ painting updates the image by replacing Hendrix with Ronald McDonald holding an array of fast food items. This unapologetic image of a fast food mascot alongside a God is an explicit critique of the commercialization of contemporary society.

Monstro Eyegasmica w​ill feature new additions to Charles’ ongoing B​ank Note Project​as well, for which he first gained notoriety in 2010. In this ongoing series, presidents and historical figures on bills are replaced seamlessly with pop icons such as Mr. T, Yoda, and Spock. In H​ot Rod Lincoln,​Charles transforms actual United States bank notes into works of art using ink identical to that used to create five dollar bills. Framed in black, Lincoln emerges from the five dollar bills with grotesque features, his face obscured by bulging eyes and an extended tongue. Reminiscent of a Wile E. Coyote cartoon, Lincoln rides a hot rod. These small works have a broad impact: by transforming these bills, Charles puts a wrench in the recirculation process and declares that these bills are no­longer currency, but art. His political gesture is a playful one.

James Charles (born in Seattle, Washington,1963) is a mixed media artist based in San Francisco, CA. He graduated from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1990 and received the prestigious Sobel Memorial Scholarship in Printmaking. Charles has shown at various galleries across the United States, as well as internationally. He has worked with many renowned fine artists and also as a commercial sculptor, creating toy prototypes for the likes of Disney, Mattel, and Hasbro. One of the founding members of the Oyster Pirate Collaborative Workshop, he now works and resides in San Francisco.

Media

• Painting

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