NYAB Event - John Felix Arnold III “From Here”

John Felix Arnold III “From Here”

Joseph Gross Gallery

[Image: John Felix Arnold "The Traveler" (2015) Latex house paint, oil pastel, graphite, colored pencil, spray paint on wood panel, 4x2 ft.]

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Joseph Gross Gallery is pleased to present From Here,an exhibition of new works by Oakland, CA based artist John Felix Arnold III. This is Arnold’s first solo show with Joseph Gross Gallery.

This time around, Arnold is working by subtraction, by paring down. Utilizing twelve mixedmedia pieces on wood panels and paper, he’s created a series that builds off of his earlier style by the process of effacement; a release of past convention necessary to regeneration.

Arnold is working within and simultaneously against his trademarks. The process of creating these works was purifying, even ritualistic. Many pieces remain rooted in an older style of painting, but doneover in white paint, the ghosts of letterforms, panels from Akira, and giant robots linger in the background behind raw, red pastels and scribbled automatic writing. Others are dustbunnylike voids, black holes in the psyche that seem to tunnel themselves out of their frames.

The divergence in Arnold’s recent work is a direct outcome of intense personal growth for the artist. Created quickly in a twomonth period, these smaller, more controlled pieces offer a sense of loss and isolation, but also that of trajectory and possibility. A departure from his past work exploring a postapocalyptic vision between the organic and the mechanic, the recollection of a childhood framed by comic books, action films, anime and Ukiyoe imagery, From Here addresses an interior world beyond that specific set of references, creating an entirely new kind of painting for the artist alongside his fresh worldview.

This mature new collection illustrates the depths of his artistic process, the painful cavities of uncertainty and selfconsciousness. Ultimately, his instinct towards devastation is overridden by the more deeply rooted instinct to survive and evolve.

John Felix Arnold III was born in Durham, North Carolina and grew up moving between Durham and New York City. He graduated Pratt Institute in 2002 with a BFA in Communication Design and in 2006 moved to study Graduate Printmaking at San Francisco Art Institute. He has shown with SFMOMA, the Luggage Store Gallery, The Shooting Gallery, Joseph Gross Gallery, Spoke Art, BRIC Arts, and was a SpesLab Residency artist in Tokyo. He currently lives and works in Oakland, CA.