Artist: Tyler Vlahovich
Exhibition title: Three Moving Parts
Venue: Feuilleton, Los Angeles, US
Date: April 29 – May 16, 2020
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Feuilleton, Los Angeles
Feuilleton is pleased to present Tyler Vlahovich’s solo show, on which Vlahovich writes:
The majority of this work was all done this month in quarantine. The mix of cardboard is from various items shipped to my home through Amazon, UPS and USPS.
The paintings get some of their character from mixing wax into oil paint. The wax gives paint body. The rough rendering and minimal color palette stem from prior work that was about reduction and simplification.
At the heart of these paintings is a directness that’s almost ridiculous. There’s an unrefined quality. The paints are jabbed into place. The browns are reminiscent of rusty metal. The darks look like tar. The bright messy whites, like smeared marshmallow, add an unexpected crispness to the grime. All together, the colors and their associations remind me of old ‘danger keep out’ signs mixed with the run down and abandoned structures they haunt.
Making a mess like this is delicious. It’s crude, disturbing and satisfying. The paint body is charged with tiny details. The shapes are heavy and blunt. This mix of elements seems at home on cardboard. The thing about cardboard is it reveals itself in such an uncomplicated way. Cardboard never claims to be more than it is. Canvas on the other hand can be unintentionally mythic; its simplicity is often upstaged by the legacy of art. Simplicity on canvas can feel epic and significant. Cardboard escapes this trap.
Tyler Vlahovich (b. 1967 Tacoma, WA) is a painter who lives and works in Los Angeles. A regular exhibitor at Feature Inc., New York from 2003 until its closure in 2014, Vlahovich has also had solos, most recently, at Window Project, Richard Telles Fine Art, Los Angeles (2017); Twig Gallery, Brussels (2011); John Tevis Gallery, Paris (2006); Mary Goldman gallery (2003).
Feuilleton is a domestic gallery space dedicated to showing works on paper. Currently open only by appointment, the exhibitions can be visited online at Feuilleton’s website and Instagram.
