Joshua Nathanson

Blending modernist painting traditions with contemporary ways of seeing, Joshua Nathanson creates large-scale, colourful and chaotic yet strangely cohesive paintings. Bridging representation and abstraction, digital and real, the works appear psychedelic in their Kandinsky-like composition, amplified by hyper-modern concerns and imagery. In his practice, Nathanson uses handmade brushes and paints, as well as his fingers, palette knives, airbrushes and iPads, to create vibrant patterns and layered perspectives, which only appear to be abstract. From the immediacy of lived experience to mental health issues and anxiety induced by the rush of living in the contemporary moment, Nathanson’s paintings tackle that which is familiar in chaotic and exuberant experiments. Written by Goldsmiths CCA ...

Various Small Fires (Los Angeles /Dallas /Seoul) began as a series of conversations with artists and curators in Esther Kim Varet’s Venice Beach kitchen while working on her doctoral dissertation. VSF debuted in Hollywood as an official gallery in 2015 with a roster of artists and its current Johnston MarkLee Architects-designed building. The Hollywood gallery contains three exhibition spaces, a unique sound corridor, and an outdoor gallery. VSF’s exhibition program explores several curatorial lines: climate, equality, and an international conversation. The gallery is known for offering artists debut shows, creating intergenerational conversations among the artists on its roster, and solidifying artists’ legacies within art history. In 2019, VSF opened a second location in the Hannam neighbourhood of Seoul, South Korea, followed recently this Spring by VSFs third outpost in Dallas, Texas. While Varet has very personal connections to both locations, they are also superlative art communities. These expansions emphasise the gallery’s commitment to innovation and global dialogue in the twenty-first century. In 2021, VSF became a member of the Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA). ...