Trauma Sauna presents a new series of paintings by Brian Kokoska within an installation of sculptures by Chelsea Culprit, Erik Frydenborg, and Ben Stone. Kokoska’s paintings, built from layers of drawing and color blocking, deny any illusion of depth and instead focus on an almost-flat rendering of imaginative scenes inhabited by androgynous figures, mystical creatures and frolicking devils. Crescent moons, stars, bones, genitals, flora and fauna are among the motifs that obsessively reappear, often anthropomorphized and evoking anxieties of sex, ecstasy and death. Accompanied by their morbidly playful and poetic titles, Kokoska’s paintings are gestural interpretations toward a fleeting experience or unknown place that is intentionally left murky and resistant to any one definitive perception by viewers. Trauma Sauna will be on view until October 22, 2016 at Ashes On Ashes Gallery, 2404 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA. photographs by Oliver Maxwell Kupper