Joshua Aster: Innerverse

Edward Cella Art & Architecture is pleased to announce the exhibition:Innerverse, by Joshua Aster. In his debut project with ECAA, Aster presents optically intricate oil paintings that expand upon the artist’s ongoing investigations into pattern and mark making. Embracing a broader interest in the re emergence of pattern, Aster’s use of tools and repetitive forms are transformed though his intuitive color sensibility and innovative aggregation into lyrical yet dynamic abstractions. Ultimately, Aster’s process is the key to the manifestation of his concept, with each exploration driven by different systems of arrangement and mark making.

In his newest series of works, Aster begins a painting by collecting objects, for instance remnants of broken dishware or fraying baskets, from around his home or gifted by friends. Arranging these objects on the canvas, Aster traces their shadows, alert to the myriad of visual possibilities each remnant possesses. The systematic transfer of a three dimensional form to a two dimensional surface creates complex and diverse sets of patterns that the artist guides to become an open visual language with which to consider the distance between reality and visual illusion.

Though the objects serve only as a guide for Aster, his intuitive processes generate serialized bodies of works which have distinct and varied visual characteristics and expressions. Sometimes a single object, depending on which way the transfer is orchestrated, can create two completely different patterns.

The artist’s innate yet highly informed sense of color creates vibrant paintings that seek fresh and innovative visual relationships. Ever conscious of the interplay between paint and surface, he selects unique mediums including linen, stained linen, canvas, burlap, and printed fabric. The subsequent treatment of each surface provides an additional textural layer to his already intricate patterns.

Born 1976 in New York, Joshua Aster received a master of fine art degree from University of California Los Angeles (2007) and a bachelor of fine art degree from Skidmore College in New York (1998). He has been featured in exhibitions throughout the United States: solo shows at Carl Berg Gallery in Los Angeles, Karl Hutter Fine Art in Beverly Hills, and Utah Museum of Contemporary Art in Salt Lake City (Utah). His work has also been included in various group exhibitions at Roberts & Tilton, Daniel Weinberg Gallery, Michael Kohn Gallery, PØST Gallery, Annie Wharton Fine Art, Taylor de Cordoba, and Pepin Moore in Los Angeles, Angstrom Gallery in Dallas, and Plane Space in New York. Aster is a founding member of the artist collective OJO, which has had solo projects at MOCA, Los Angeles and LA.

Special Exhibition Program:
Joshua Aster and Spencer Lewis in Conversation
Join exhibiting artists Joshua Aster and Spencer Lewis for an informal tour and conversation led by curator and gallery director Carl Berg.