“BOYTOY SUMMER” opened on First Friday, November 5th, 2022 at InsideStyle. It was my second solo exhibition of the year, and took place almost immediately after my apprenticeship with Deana Khoshaba. The tongue in cheek/rather loaded title of the showing is a reference to my Artist In Residency experience with The Cube LV that Summer, where I spent 3 months painting in Laguna Beach, Calico Basin & ultimately traveling to Europe for a dense but quick crash course in culture and travel that included me attending the Bienalle De Venezia 2022: The Milk Of Dreams, recording at Noisy Rooms Berlin and attending concerts at the legendary improvisational/jazz venue Cafe OTO on three separate occasions. It was 3 months of my life on contract as an artist via a man who has an undoubtably vast impact on the las vegas arts district and a few of it’s landmark buildings/establishments in the are. He also gave me the chance to experience culture, first hand, therefore also giving me the ability to create with it in my mind from then on. For the rest of my life now, I can express myself from a perspective of having actually seen contemporary art in another country where I didn’t speak the language.
…though I would often joke that I was not my patron’s “boytoy”. On one occasion he even suggested I name a piece of art that in the future. In the end, I thought an exhibition with that title would do just as well.
Late October of 2022 was such a proverbial sigh of relief for myself, as I locked down the gallery space to be used for my second solo exhibition to tie up the year. I had my entire collection from that ’22 and ’21 on full display in a gallery on Main Street, where cars are forced via traffic to crawl towards the Charleston blvd light, giving them view of the tall windows with large abstract paintings inside. It felt amazing having myself sprawled throughout the gallery space in the form of all my paintings. I remember a major insecurity/source of mild confusion for me was pricing the works and creating print material for the public to read, as there were so many paintings and I kept moving/switching them in and out, making it hard to put on paper. Much like my ideas and practices in my works, whatever the medium.
Early morning of opening day a Las Vegas Weekly photographer came to get pictures of me setting up my show after a feature interview I had with Geoff Carter about the exhibition and my journey to that point. Interior design firm, InsideStyle, is located in the heart of the Las Vegas arts district, right off of Main Street & Charleston Blvd. They have a beautiful office attached to a gorgeous gallery space with windows to the ceiling and beautiful, tall walls.
Marc and Jill Ableman gave me the incredibly validating experience of operating my own art gallery, in a beautiful store front, smack dab in the middle of downtown Las Vegas, directly across from a popular coffee shop; a great situation on Sunday mornings. I had 3 weeks, and it was just phenomenal having the space as a gallery and a work space. It had plenty of room to be both and I believe the visitors that came by enjoyed seeing artists painting in real time & making a natural painting environment out of a showroom. The process of creating is a big focus in my work anyways, so it makes sense to emphasize that sentiment by actually painting in the gallery space during open hours.
The show got me 3 different interviews for press and introduced me to new collectors I’d had never met if it wasn’t for the Ableman’s patronage, which was provided to me when I needed it most; as a local artist and a human being. I think an “artist” is just an extreme/dramatic version of the latter, but regardless; they offered the resources they had to someone that had a vision/plan, and that’s all it takes for some serious magic to happen. At least in my (admittedly wild) experience.
I’m extremely grateful and glad I stumbled into such a grandiose platform for my art and self. A lot of people don’t have the time, resources, paintings, etc necessary to do this sort of thing on such short notice. So if my experience operating a fine abstract art gallery as a single man operation taught me anything it was that I should have delegated tasks more or hired outside help for marketing materials and advertising. It all happened so fast I feel like I barely had my head on straight for the First Friday opening night, haha.
Though again, a huge thanks to InsideStyle & the Ableman’s for their continuous support of the local arts scene and the people within it. It’s situations like this one that allow major steps forward for both individuals and the community at large. When you show them, by example, that these things are possible, it truly takes the conversation of “what happened to art in the arts district?” a big step forward & in the right direction. I look forward to seeing more examples of this in my community in years to come, as I know first hand how much small opportunities can motivate young or emerging artists to do significant things and contribute to the arts community with more knowledge and experience in their tool belt.
You can probably tell I had/have a thing for reds & flesh tones at this time in my life. Something about Cadmium Red paint smashed into canvas, against all encompassing matte black swathes of india ink really seemed to evoke the kind of action I was looking for in painting. One could interpret it many ways, but I know red to be very evocative and fiery in it’s essence, and that surely creeps its way into anyone’s interpretation. I also notice that I slowly begin to introduce more line work in my paintings, trying to sort of call forth any semblance of something figurative in my works, or perhaps toying with the concept of composition and mark making going hand in hand.
- Artwork of Russian Painter & Art Theorist Wassily Kandinsky, 1913, “Obelisk”
I feel reading late Russian Painter and Art Theorist Wassily Kandinsky‘s book “Concerning The Spiritual In Art“ definitely inspired me in attempting to paint forms over pure abstraction/noise. Even with the “noise”, you can see me start to bend those portions and form vague gestural outlines with them, instead of just slapping muddy paint layers over eachother until I was done with whatever seemed to be bothering me at the time.
A main point of feedback I get from my works before 2022 was that my paintings were good and all, but they felt “too much”. They were violent scenes of colors blooming into each other, but in a way that’s anything but “living room material”. Interior designers would see my works and explain that I shouldn’t just hang raw canvas in such a gallery space, but I suppose that was my intention. I think deep down I was trying to break any and all rules that I could think of or even start making up. I wanted to rebel against traditional approaches to art exhibitions in Las Vegas, including sound art by ambient artists in each of my showings opening receptions so far.
I wasn’t reinventing the wheel by any means, but I was blissfully unaware of how I “should” be approaching the use of this gallery space, which lead me to do things that traditionally might not happen, inevitably leading to things happening that may not have happened otherwise.
Anyways, this is clearly just me rambling, but I appreciate if you stuck with me all throughout this blog post. I just wanted to put my thoughts down about this experience/exhibition so I can share the fact that it happened at all. I will include a recap video at some point in the next week. Here’s more photos in the meantime. – b.g.
