Dave Kinsey @ Joshua Liner Gallery (9/9/10)

Our next exhibition is a full gallery solo with Dave Kinsey. This is Kinsey's debut solo show with the gallery and his first solo show in nearly two years.

Press release and studio shot below. Please contact the gallery with any inquiries at info@joshualinergallery.com

Joshua Liner Gallery is pleased to present Dave Kinsey: New Works, an exhibition of mixed-media paintings by the Los Angeles-based artist. This full-gallery show marks Kinsey’s debut solo exhibition at Joshua Liner and his first solo in nearly two years.

Working in acrylic, spray paint, paper, wood, and ink on canvas, Dave Kinsey’s works of raw emotion draw their energy, style, and often substance from abstract expressionism mixed with urban hieroglyphics. His dynamic figures are situated within multi-layered, multi-textured atmospheres of pure abstraction. These beings displaying a mixture of defiance, triumph, and tragedy—transmit their forceful spirit through Kinsey’s range of mediums, signature style, and a high-contrast color palette.

Among this suite of medium- to large-sized paintings, the Continuum series (I, II & III) makes a powerful impact with its repeated skull and flower imagery. Viewers peer through a transparent layer of ghostlike skulls (human, animal) to a second layer of delicately rendered flowers (roses, peonies) then even deeper to an explosive, silhouetted background of chaos that hints of classic graffiti tags. Serving as contemporary vanitas, these layers of wildly contrasting content and graphic styles resolve into complex, feeling-toned compositions.

Kinsey’s portrait paintings, like King of Pop, Radio in a Box, Black Rain, and Man from Topanga, enlist these gripping contrasts in color, mark-making, and layering into finely tuned portrayals of emotional extremes. Where figures’ physical features are shut down or lack obvious expression, color and abstract forms serve to reveal and cathect underlying psychological states.

The artist suggests an even deeper resonance in his depiction of extreme contrasts, writing, “In this new body of work I explore emotional and environmental boundaries as I perceive them, in the context of the growing discord between humanity and nature. In the cyclical reality of our physical existence, beauty and death are ultimately dancing partners.”

Born in 1971 in Pittsburgh, Dave Kinsey studied at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh and Art Institute of Atlanta; he currently lives and works in Los Angeles and Three Rivers, CA. Solo exhibitions of his work include : •You Are Here, ALICE Gallery, Brussels (2008); Holy Sh*t, Lazarides Gallery, UK (2008); New Works, The Public Trust, Dallas (2006); Sure, Why Not, Kinsey/DesForges Gallery, Los Angeles (2003) among others. Selected group exhibitions include: Whammy!, VASF Gallery, San Francisco (2009); Postcards From the Edge, Metro Pictures, New York (2008); Beautiful Losers, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco (2004), Ill Communication, Urbis Museum, Manchester, England, and Dave Kinsey and Shepard Fairey, La Panaderia Gallery, Mexico City (1999). He founded BLK/MRKT Gallery (now Kinsey/DesForges) in Los Angeles in 2001.