Future Perfect Solo Show

The Dinner Table, oil on canvas, 44x34", 2012

I'm pleased to announce my next solo show opening at the George Billis Gallery, Los Angeles, on November 17th from 5-8pm.  Titled Future Perfect, this show investigates the optimism of Mid-century architecture under the weight of the housing crises.  Shunning pure observation and delving more into a psychoanalytical realm, this body of work will be my most personal to date.

Artist Statement:
"Better living through design.  That was the Modern architect’s creed as WWII came to a close and a whole generation of returning GI’s would come home to claim the American Dream – a home, a car in the driveway, and a hot meal on the table.  With this surge of home buyers and large swaths of land that would soon become the suburbs, architects were faced with creating a new design vocabulary for living.  As a reaction to the atrocities in war-torn Europe, all the hopes of a better world would be embodied in the architecture of recent immigrant architects, as well as home-grown talent.  They crafted not just homes, but communities that focused on family as well as a deep connection to the outdoors and the beauty of the natural environment.  With recent developments in technology and aerospace design, architecture was looking forward with an optimism that has been unmatched in our history.  My new body of work, Future Perfect, looks at this period of groundbreaking design and asks, what has become of our expectations?  Did the near utopian future we hoped for ever come to fruition?  Certainly the threat of nuclear war has diminished, but we still live under a cloud of international fear.  There is widespread unrest and our common outlook on the future provides very little comfort.  As the symbol of the once idyllic future we hoped for, I center this discussion on midcentury Modern housing.  It’s fitting then, that the thing that was supposed to exemplify the better life we strived for has come crashing down with the housing market collapse.  What happened to the perfect future we thought was just beyond the horizon?"

Future Perfect
Opening: November 17th, 5-8pm

George Billis Gallery
2716 S. La Cienega Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90034