On Saturday, February 25th, Corey Helford Gallery is
proud to premiere “Antisocial Network,” the first exhibition in Los Angeles in
over a decade from local visual artist
Alex Gross. On display in the main gallery, the new collection features oil paintings, drawings and mixed
media cabinet card paintings.
Although
modern technology appears in only about half of the works, the multiple
readings of this phrase apply to every piece in the exhibition. One
interpretation gleaned from the new work is that social networks, both real and
online, rather than bringing us closer, are in fact eroding our connections
with one another, resulting in isolation, loneliness, and the inability to
exist in the present.
Several paintings
reference well-known corporate brands, but overall the work has a more intimate
and personal slant than Gross’ previous
exhibitions. In several pieces, figures are lost in thought, if not distracted
by a phone or VR headset, then perhaps by their thoughts. In another, a young
lady seems to contemplate her own mortality within a giant slurpee. Another
floats aimlessly, lost in thought in the bath, alone but for a few rubber
ducks. An attractive couple embrace while at the beach, but one of them appears
to be quietly fading away. And a seeming bride-to-be cradles the head of her
apparently android companion.
These
paintings straddle the line between surreal dreamscape and incisive social
commentary. The result is an intimate portrait of the modern condition in 2017.
What the future holds for us as a species, and for our relationship to the
world around us, is one of the key themes that unifies these unique and
powerful paintings.
Alex Gross was born in 1968 in Roslyn Heights, NY,
graduated from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA in 1990. He
currently lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.