Static: New Paintings By Vanessa Prager @ Diane Rosenstein Gallery In Los Angeles

Vanessa Prager’s recently completed series of oil paintings, Static, continues her exploration of sculptural impasto techniques and revisits 19th-century post-Impressionism in the 21st century. Prager’s new paintings pack a sensory and emotional impact, redefining perception in a high-def world. Her impasto pieces resist the quick take and allow us to discover the hidden treasure of the work itself; in these paintings, more is more. In this time of pandemic, when screens dominate as a means to work, play, connect and exist, Prager is the analog compass directing us back to the tangible. With big, heavy, drippy canvases and what can only be referred to as extreme painting, Prager rejects artificial crispness and reminds us how an abstract work can help us locate feelings so precisely.

Static is on view through April 10 @ Diane Rosenstein Gallery 831 N Highland Avenue, Los Angeles

Fingerbanging Amelia Earheart

If there was anything in the world to denote the end of artistic sanctity, it would be the work of photographer Jason Levins. Using old point and shoot cameras and disposable film has been done a million times. In the bleary eyed dystopic fantasy Jason Levins captures through his lens there is a sense of irony that peers through, like light through cracks in a pitch black church. And in the columns of  light we  find illuminated our youth like rats scurrying in the putrid rot of some alternate zeitgeist: pulling their balls out under tables, drinking pabst blue ribbon, breasts, diy tattoos, camping.  But this raises a serious question: was there ever sanctity in art in the first place?  I have grappled for a little while now on how to fairly criticize Levins' photography, because, not only are his photographs deserving of questions, they are also worthy of analytical review.  If we look close enough we can find small, dazzling gems of humanity peering back out through the cracks, in small private moments of a youth grappling with their identity in an age of war and catastrophe.  In this light, Jasons Levins works become a highly critical essay on the condition of youth in our post modern society. We must fuck all to get us through the strange and frightening condition of the world, but fuck all with love - and that just might be the moral of the story.  www.staticonthebrain.com