Josh Reames
Wet & Wild
April 09, 2016 - May 12, 2016
Gallery 1

Press Release
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Wet & Wild

Josh Reames

APRIL 9 | MAY 12 2016

Opening April 9, 2016 | 12-8:30 pm

 

 

Brand New Gallery is delighted to present Josh Reames’ solo exhibition “Wet & Wild”. 

In “Wet & Wild” Josh Reames presents a new series of paintings which employ commonly used artistic techniques, such as trompe-l’oeil, action painting, graphic design and rudimentary drawing, all existing on one plane.

The artworks by Josh Reames consider abstraction and painting in relation to the internet and digital image searches via Google Image and Tumblr.

Reames’ conceptual framework functions as a kind of filtration device for cultural by-product and its attending relativism, literally flattening disparate images and references and thereby removing their hierarchy. In this evanescence, a compendium of signs, text and symbols (emoji, letters, text, and numbers—doubling as marks, sprayed or squeezed), objects (cigarettes, fried eggs, bombs, tennis balls), and cultural icons (Gumby, female breasts) are all flattened to the same-level composition.

“One thing that I am really interested in is the way that the Internet—browsing, blog rolling, etc.—takes away the hierarchy of image importance, meaning, and connection.  (…) I think about painting in a similar way, where images, marks, art historical references, and everyday objects are all depicted on the same level, contained in the same rectangle, emerging out of one painting and into another.”

 

 

 Josh Reames

(b. 1985, Dallas,TX) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Josh Reames received a MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BFA at the University of North Texas. Recent solo exhibitions include: Josh Reames & José Lerma, Luis de Jesus (Los Angeles, 2016); Poise in the noise, Josh Lilley (London, 2015); CO-ED (with Amber Renaye), Oliver Francis Gallery (Dallas, TX). Group shows include: Surreal, Koenig Gallery (Berlin, 2016); Imagine, Brand New Gallery (Milan, 2016); Roberto Paradise (San Juan, 2016); Continuous Surfaces, Andrea Rosen Gallery (New York, 2015); The Negative Hand, Anonymous Gallery (Mexico City, 2015); HA HA! Business, Luis de Jesus (Los Angeles, 2015); Baudrillard’s America, Andrew Rafacz Gallery (Chicago, 2015); Five, LVL3 (Chicago, 2015); 2159 Miles, All Around Art & Brand New Gallery (San Juan, 2015).