Artists: Michael Stasis, Greg Ito
Exhibition title: Lock & Key
Venue: Smart Objects, Los Angeles, US
Date: July 27 – August 31, 2019
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and Smart Objects, Los Angeles
SMART OBJECTS is pleased to present Lock & Key, a two person show featuring multi-disciplinary works by Philadelphia-based artist Michael Stasis and Los Angeles-based artist Greg Ito.
Lock & Key explores the common themes in both artists’ worlds and elucidates broader concerns around creative health, work, fantasy and dark obsession via collaborative installation elements.
Ito’s paintings present a near perfect world, a designed vision of utopian promise rings, keys to success and magical road trips. Though his refined symbolic vernacular alludes to pure bliss and a what-could-be romanticism, his sculptures hint at something more sinister. The good life is not easily won. A grittier Stasis reinforces this yearning for more beautiful inner worlds with a variety of drawn vocabularies and music. Through animation, tragicomic illustration and painstaking rendering, the artist employs additional methodologies for expressing a shared preoccupation with romance and beauty, however unrealistic. For Ito and Stasis, these works convey a tension between the pragmatic and the divine. Both artists seek to recast Western notions of the traditional work ethic into self-actualization through their practices.
Michael Stasis, Greg Ito, Lock & Key, 2019, exhibition view, Smart Objects, Los Angeles
Michael Stasis, Greg Ito, Lock & Key, 2019, exhibition view, Smart Objects, Los Angeles
Greg Ito, Keeper of the Keys, Acrylic on canvas, 32 x 25 inches, 2019
Greg Ito, Keeper of the Keys, Acrylic on canvas, 32 x 25 inches, 2019
Greg Ito, Keeper of the Keys, Acrylic on canvas, 32 x 25 inches, 2019
Michael Stasis, Greg Ito, Lock & Key, 2019, exhibition view, Smart Objects, Los Angeles
Greg Ito, Table For One, Wood stool, ceramic plates, wine glass, fork, spoon, faux ferns, acrylic, enamel, UV protective varnish, 36 x 14 x 30 inches, 2019
Michael Stasis, Rocks & Clouds, Ink on paper, 12 x 9 inches, 2018
Michael Stasis, Rocks & Clouds, Ink on paper, 12 x 9 inches, 2018
Michael Stasis, Greg Ito, Lock & Key, 2019, exhibition view, Smart Objects, Los Angeles
Michael Stasis, Greg Ito, Lock & Key, 2019, exhibition view, Smart Objects, Los Angeles
Michael Stasis, Joy, Ink on paper, 11 x 8.5 inches, 2018
Michael Stasis, Joy, Ink on paper, 11 x 8.5 inches, 2018
Michael Stasis, Greg Ito, Lock & Key, 2019, exhibition view, Smart Objects, Los Angeles
Michael Stasis, Monomaniac, Micron pen on paper, 32.5 x 24.5 inches, 2019
Michael Stasis, Monomaniac, Micron pen on paper, 32.5 x 24.5 inches, 2019
Michael Stasis, Monomaniac, Micron pen on paper, 32.5 x 24.5 inches, 2019
Michael Stasis, Monomaniac, Micron pen on paper, 32.5 x 24.5 inches, 2019
Michael Stasis, Monomaniac, Micron pen on paper, 32.5 x 24.5 inches, 2019
Michael Stasis, Greg Ito, Lock & Key, 2019, exhibition view, Smart Objects, Los Angeles
Michael Stasis, Greg Ito, Lock & Key, 2019, exhibition view, Smart Objects, Los Angeles
Greg Ito, Promised Land, Acrylic on canvas, 24 x 20 inches, 2019
Greg Ito, Promised Land, Acrylic on canvas, 24 x 20 inches, 2019
Greg Ito, Light My Fire, Wood, acrylic, UV protective varnish, brass candle stick, enamel, wax candle, faux ferns, 36 x 30 x 30 inches, 2019
Michael Stasis, Greg Ito, Lock & Key, 2019, exhibition view, Smart Objects, Los Angeles
Michael Stasis, Greg Ito, Lock & Key, 2019, exhibition view, Smart Objects, Los Angeles
Michael Stasis, Only The Living, Digital animation, Run time: 4:08, 2019
Michael Stasis, Greg Ito, Lock & Key, 2019, exhibition view, Smart Objects, Los Angeles
Michael Stasis, Greg Ito, Lock & Key, 2019, exhibition view, Smart Objects, Los Angeles
Michael Stasis, Greg Ito, Lock & Key, 2019, exhibition view, Smart Objects, Los Angeles
Michael Stasis, Friday Nite Gloves, Ink on paper, 11 x 8.5 inches, 2018
Michael Stasis, Friday Nite Gloves, Ink on paper, 11 x 8.5 inches, 2018
Michael Stasis, Studio Watcher, Ink on paper, 11 x 8.5 inches, 2018
Michael Stasis, Studio Watcher, Ink on paper, 11 x 8.5 inches, 2018
Michael Stasis, Spiritual Cramp, Ink on paper, 11 x 8.5 inches, 2018
Michael Stasis, Spiritual Cramp, Ink on paper, 11 x 8.5 inches, 2018
Michael Stasis, Greg Ito, Lock & Key, 2019, exhibition view, Smart Objects, Los Angeles
Michael Stasis, Stoop, Ink on paper, 11 x 8.5 inches, 2018
Michael Stasis, Stoop, Ink on paper, 11 x 8.5 inches, 2018
Michael Stasis, Tunnel, Ink on paper, 11 x 8.5 inches, 2018
Michael Stasis, Tunnel, Ink on paper, 11 x 8.5 inches, 2018
Michael Stasis, Greg Ito, Lock & Key, 2019, exhibition view, Smart Objects, Los Angeles
Michael Stasis, Greg Ito, Lock & Key, 2019, exhibition view, Smart Objects, Los Angeles
Greg Ito, The Wishing Well, Mixed media installation: Wood, hardware, steel lock, acrylic, enamel, LED tube lighting fixture, MDF, faux ferns, fire retardant velvet curtain, and lighting gels, Dimensions variable, 2019
Michael Stasis, Greg Ito, Lock & Key, 2019, exhibition view, Smart Objects, Los Angeles
Michael Stasis, Greg Ito, Lock & Key, 2019, exhibition view, Smart Objects, Los Angeles