JOSH SLATER: SATISFACTION CIRCUIT

September 7 - October 12

Kristen Lorello is thrilled to present Brooklyn-based multidisciplinary artist Josh Slater's first solo exhibition with the gallery. The exhibition, "Josh Slater: Satisfaction Circuit," will be comprised of four collages made to the scale of the gallery, two spray-painted works on paper, and an experimental travel video, "The Sleeper's Eye."

The two main walls of the gallery will contain four horizontal collages featuring imagery of nature in untouched and controlled states. Two smaller vertical works on paper, containing torn papers affixed to a white backing and linear spray-painted forms in blue, red, and black, will bracket one of the horizontal works.Science and geography books, magazines, as well as stock photography provide the source material for the collages. Drawing inspiration from the cut-up method of William S. Burroughs, as well as the widescreen filmic look created by the 1950s Panavision camera, Slater makes each overall collage by creating small rectilinear sections of assembled paper and adding them together horizontally to form elongated narrow bands. Cloud formations, totem poles, a sunset, a telephone number, the sun, a satellite dish, a wooden mask, and original graphite drawing appear alongside each other within each work.

Slater's video, "The Sleeper's Eye" (2014, 5:53 min) features an original soundtrack by the artist and John Whitlock and brings film into the exhibition directly. "The Sleeper's Eye" interweaves footage Slater shot while moving through cities such as Amagansett, Hudson, Los Angeles, and Portland, with found geometric animations that he warped in an editing process. The opening shot of the Portland skyline appears in widescreen format.Subsequent scenes appear instead in 4:3 aspect ratio, common of earlier television screens. To create this change in aspect ratio, Slater used an old VHS camera to film the widescreen footage as it played on a monitor. The artist's thoughts on his recent collages, which he described to curator Ginger Shulick Porcellain an interview featured the March 2014 issue of Creem Magazine, might also be said of his recent work in video: "My current themes are like a deep thought that’s buried and trying to be unearthed. Maybe each collage is a part of a clue to the overall image. Something that flashes before your eyes before you go to sleep or maybe a hazy memory."

Josh Slater lives and works in Brooklyn, NY, and is a multidisciplinary artist who works in drawing, video, and collage.  His works have been featured in group exhibitions at Artists Space, Clifton Benevento, Louis B. James, Kristen Lorello, and within the 2012 Shanghai Biennale, among other venues. Video screenings include Lisa Cooley (2014), the New Museum of Contemporary Art (2011) and ISE Cultural Foundation (2013).  Josh received his BFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Art, Tufts University, in 2001.