Samantha Rosenwald @ Steve Turner, Los Angeles - Schadenfreude

Samantha Rosenwald: Schadenfreude
Steve Turner, Los Angeles
June 20 - July 18, 2020

Steve Turner presents Schadenfreude, a solo exhibition featuring recent work by Los Angeles- based Samantha Rosenwald. "Schadenfreude", a German word that does not neatly translate into English, denotes the complex feeling of pleasure in witnessing another person’s misfortune. This cruel form of satisfaction relates to the Zanni—a clownish character of 16th century Italian Commedia dell’arte. A Zanni, a foolish, ignorant servant, through self-humiliation and idiocy, is always the butt of the joke, both to his onstage superiors and to the audience. The English word “zany” comes from this character.

Peepee, the comically rendered insect that is central to all of the works in the exhibition, embodies the meaning of schadenfreude and the spirit of the Zanni. The comedy and cuteness of her circumstances please her onlooker while her deeper pain, anxiety, and humiliation lurk just below the surface. In this way, Peepee is herself a Zanni—she provides comic relief as a foolish inferior who undergoes humiliation for the sake of the observer’s pleasure.

These non-stinging passive bugs, blown up in scale, cartoonized and given human traits, are Samantha Rosenwald’s self-portraits and serve as allegories of the pressure on women to perform, serve, and entertain. They also relate to the fetishized and idealized female at large, both past and present. The perfect woman is small. She is slight and sweet, cute and passive. The name Peepee originated as a nickname given to Samantha Rosenwald by her boyfriend. She describes it as the perfect name for her goofy caterpillar alter-ego, both absurd and embarrassing, yet also cute, especially at first read.

SAMANTHA ROSENWALD (b. 1994, Los Angeles) received her BA in Art History from Vassar College (2016) and her MFA in Fine Art from California College of the Arts (2018). Her work has been exhibited at MCLXVII, San Francisco; Eve Leibe Gallery, London and Zevitas Marcus, Los Angeles. This is her first exhibition at Steve Turner.

STEVE TURNER
6830 Santa Monica Boulevard., Los Angeles, CA 90038
steveturner.la

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David Leggett @ Steve Turner Gallery, Los Angeles - Why you really mad?

David Leggett: Why you really mad?
Steve Turner, Los Angeles
June 20 - July 18, 2020

Steve Turner presents Why you really mad?, a solo exhibition by Los Angeles-based DAVID LEGGETT which features paintings and works on paper from the last few years that utilize a comic style to deal with serious subjects like racial injustice and police brutality alongside lighter ones like art history and pop culture. While he makes his works accessible with colorful depictions of Bart Simpson, Fat Albert, Alfred E. Newman and other somewhat familiar blobby characters coupled with catchy phrases, he does so to get you in. Once there, you will have to face the more difficult issues that are part of every work. The question in the title is David Leggett’s, one he poses to anyone who might take offense at his work. 

David Leggett (born 1980) earned a BFA at Savannah College of Art and Design (2003) and an MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2007) before attending Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2010). He has had solo exhibitions at Shane Campbell Gallery, Chicago (2017 & 2019) and his work has been included in group exhibitions at Zidoun & Bossuyt Gallery, Luxembourg; James Fuentes Gallery, New York; Kunstverein Langenhagen, Germany and the Contemporary Art Museum, Raleigh, North Carolina. This is his first exhibition at Steve Turner, Los Angeles.

STEVE TURNER
6830 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90038
steveturner.la

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Surface Tension @ Steve Turner, Los Angeles - Joaquin Boz, Siro Cugusi, Stevie Dix, Kiyoshi Kaneshiro, Gabby Rosenberg, Jessica Wilson

Joaquin Boz, Siro Cugusi, Stevie Dix, Kiyoshi Kaneshiro, Gabby Rosenberg, Jessica Wilson: Surface Tension
Steve Turner, Los Angeles
June 15 - July 23, 2019

Steve Turner presents Surface Tension, an exhibition featuring recent works by six emerging artists: Joaquin Boz (Buenos Aires); Siro Cugusi (Sardinia); Stevie Dix (Suffolk, England); Kiyoshi Kaneshiro (Alfred, New York); Gabby Rosenberg (Los Angeles) and Jessica Wilson (Glasgow). Each of the artists was selected for his or her distinctiveness–in philosophy, motivation, concept, process and result–and for his or her harmony with the others.

The diversity of styles is notable. Joaquin Boz paints on large wood panels with his hands, adding and removing colorful gestures until he decides that a painting is finished; Siro Cugusi creates fantastical scenes that are based on the flora of his native Sardinia and the fauna of his mind; Stevie Dix uses thick passages of paint to create personal symbol-laden paintings; Kiyoshi Kaneshiro uses bright pink and yellow glazes to create ceramic vessels that seem to have been frozen while exploding; Gabby Rosenberg composes with color fields to depict figures or abstract forms; and Rebecca Wilson applies simple passages of color against solid backgrounds.   

Though they sound very different when described, the works are compatible. Each has a traumatized surface that bears the scars and scratches of its maker’s labor, self-reflection and improvement.

STEVE TURNER

6830 Santa Monica Blvd. Los Angeles CA 90038
steveturner.la

Dominic Dispirito @ Steve Turner, Los Angeles - Pearly Party

Dominic Dispirito: Pearly Party
Steve Turner, Los Angeles
March 30 - May 4, 2019

Steve Turner presents Pearly Party, a solo exhibition by London-based Dominic Dispirito that celebrates the British working class and his upbringing in the heart of Cockney London. He presents paintings that depict “Pearly Queens,” Cockney characters who originated in Victorian London, who evolved from the Coster Kings and Queens, the elected leaders of London’s street hawkers. Benevolent societies developed to aid the less fortunate, and parades were staged in which the “Pearlies” dressed in elaborate clothing that they adorned with rows and rows of mother-of-pearl buttons.

Dominic Dispirito has updated his Pearly Queens by using new technologies and materials. He begins by using various iPhone apps to create drawings and animations that he transforms into actual paintings. In some, he uses plastic 3D modeling paste to build up thick textures on small panels. In others, he applies thin layers of acrylic on stretched linen.

DOMINIC DISPIRITO (b. 1982) earned a BFA from Middlesex University, London (2013) and an MFA from the Slade School of Fine Art, London (2017). He has had a solo exhibitions at The Dot Project, London and Annka Kultys Gallery, London. Pearly Party is Dominic Dispirito’s first exhibition with Steve Turner and his first outside Great Britain.

STEVE TURNER
6830 Santa Monica Blvd. Los Angeles CA 90038
steveturner.la