Moskowitz Bayse is currently showing Layman’s Terms, Tongue Tied, first solo presentation in Los Angeles by Aaron Elvis Jupin. Comprising a body of inks on paper alongside a series of paintings done with acrylic and vinyl on canvas, the exhibition is providing a great insight into the Los Angeles-based artist's mindset and outlook as well as his fastidious technique.
When looking at the presentation one is instantly taken by the flawlessness of Jupin's modus operandi. From the smoothly rounded edges of the frames housing clean-line ink drawings to the variety of highly deceiving surfaces of his airbrush canvases, the clinical exactness of these works elevates them above what we traditionally experience as drawings or paintings. At this level, Jupin captures and betrays viewer's attention with associative imagery, ranging from Disney-like animation cel drawings to references to common objects, characters, scenes, or creatures in his paintings. Questionably harmonious or beautiful by the common standards, there is a sense of imminent turn of events in these sustained and strange images. As if suggesting a preceding disaster or witnessing a looming chaos, the familiarity of depicted elements and the accuracy of their rendition makes the work undeniably authentic and compelling.
Simple yet puzzling scenes feature sometimes altered or mutated objects that now form new meanings and suggest potentially new narratives and/or ideas. In such light, "nostalgia, preserved in the enduring confusions of childhood, proves misplaced, as Jupin’s paintings return the viewer to a state of hallucinatory misremembrance." Such an approach to constructing imagery is signified by a step away from the tradition, both in terms of composition and the visual language. Due to the synthetic nature of both the medium and the utilised aesthetics, the work feels exceptionally artificial and disconnected from reality. It's this disconnection that has the crucial effect as the imagery referencing childhood cartoons, iconic objects, elements of flora and fauna, are then introduced as newly distorted versions of their original selves. Simultaneously presented using a simple language that anyone can understand (Layman's Terms), the work is becoming difficult to decipher or explain (tongue-tie). - Sasha Bogojev
All photos via Moskowitz Bayse
