PRISKA C. JUSCHKA FINE ART
Priska C Juschka Fine Art is pleased to present Bubblin' Crude, an exhibition of recent works by Aaron Johnson, the artist's first solo show in New York.
Johnson uses painting as a dissecting probe, investigating how the human biological organism operates through the filters of culture and society. His meticulously surgical method melds intricate collage, miniaturesque painted detail, and chaotic gushes of oozing paint. The resulting thick, visceral skins of paint are mounted on clear supports, installed off the wall for inverted viewing, an experience of heightened physicality that supports the corporeal content. Johnson employs a dual viewing experience that requires a long distance for the macrocosmic gestalt and an intimate up- close view for the microcosm of details.
An alchemy of pictorial languages places abstract expressionism against frenzied cartoon, mad science against sensual baroque, resulting in internally conflicted hybrids, engaging the viewer in an experience of tension and complexity.
The imagery created in Johnson's paintings is a cross-section of figures composed of exposed systems of pulsating innards. These figures fight over mutant hamburgers, chomp at each other's flesh, and melt into each other in a bubbling stew of bodily fluids. Germinating within the bellies of these beasts, images of food, sex, and animals extracted from magazines construct a metaphor for hunger, lust, and animalistic-human drives. The appetite for consumption is as infinite as the multitude of mouths yapping and howling and biting for more.
Current political and cultural conditions are examined, being the direct result of this subverted, inherent biology. The ejaculatory bomber jet takes over the global skies, spewing a rain of sex-burgers, feeding the slime of mono- culture to everyone everywhere. Everything is oozing.
Aaron Johnson lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. He holds a BS in Molecular Cellular Biology from the University of Arizona, Tucson, and is currently working towards an MFA at Hunter College. He has exhibited in numerous group shows in New York and around the country, including the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, CO.
Priska C. Juschka Fine Art is pleased to present Everything I Don't Know Must Be Sin,
Riiko Sakkinen's first solo exhibition in the US of drawings and installation in the project
room.
Questioning the relationship between fiction and reality, Sakkinen intertwines the actual
with the conceptual, resulting in a highly intricate body of work. His work resembles a
novel, commenting inadvertently on the world we live in. It is created within the context
of the artist's constant changing surroundings, moving from country to country, from the
street to a workshop, from a museum to home, gathering in each location images and
souvenirs, which are later used to create thought- provoking drawings and installations.
Sakkinen's primary inspirations are those images most immediate to us all- the icons of
popular culture- the vibrant colors of the fast food we eat, the flashy slogans of our
advertisements and corporations and the lure of the sexy women on our products. The
artist employs his inherent simplicity to the images, working and reworking his drawings
in various locations, adding layers and often distorting them completely, at last creating a
visual documentation of his experiences and intake on diverse, yet comparable
environments.
Riiko Sakkinen was born in Helsinki and lives and works in both Finland and Spain. He
has participated in many residencies, solo and group exhibitions in Europe including the
Helsinki City Art Museum, the Camden Arts Center in London, and the Fourth Triennial
of Finnish Photography at the Amos Anderson Art Museum, Helsinki.
Gallery hours: Tuesday through Saturday 11:00 to 6:00 PM or by appointment.
