Only in My Dreams
November 11th - December 10th
Monaco is pleased to present Only in My Dreams a solo exhibition of drawings and paintings by artist Kalan Strauss (Los Angeles, Chicago), organized by Monaco members Nick Schleicher and Marina May.
Please join us for an opening reception Friday November 11, 2022 from 6 to 9 p.m with viewings available on Saturdays from 12 to 4 p.m. and by appointment.
For all inquiries and appointments please contact: Nick Schleicher at nickschleicherart@gmail.com; IG: nick_schleicher or Monaco at info@monacomonaco.us
BIO
Kalan Strauss (b. 1996, Los Angeles, USA) holds a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Growing up in Los Angeles and experiencing his father's professional involvement as an actor, Strauss became aware of the construction of representational imagery, and the extreme amount of editing, post-processing and visual effects that goes into these falsified scenarios that are presented to us as entertainment. Many of the formal qualities of Strauss’s work revolve around questioning, revealing, mimicking and critiquing this construction of representational imagery, specifically the visual experience.
instagram: @kalanstrauss / website: kalanstrauss.com
For all inquiries and appointments please contact: Nick Schleicher at nickschleicherart@gmail.com; IG: nick_schleicher or Monaco at info@monacomonaco.us
Only in My Dreams
Nestled somewhere between the fantastic and the grotesque, Only In My Dreams presents a series of painted postcards from the uncanny valley.
Kalan Strauss' hyper-saturated airbrush paintings and pencil drawings reveal a technicolor wonderland plagued by the glitches of their imagined construction. Fuzzy edges hazily outline a monkey reigning in their regal bucking steed, golden bars splice the solace of a pair of palm trees, an alligator stretches amorphously across an otherwise undisturbed tropical paradise, and a Kaiju roars cheekily as a rainbow refracts unnaturally unveiling the surreality.
Only In My Dreams references American infatuation with manipulating reality. Driven by an obsession with the primacy of a narrowly defined culture, these ideals travel insidiously across mediums. Manifest destiny was transformed into divine light dappled across the expanses of the early American Hudson River Valley paintings, and the meticulously post-produced interventions of Hollywood’s producers altered public behavior from behind the silver-screen.
Strauss’s utopian dreamscapes rely on subtle distortions in representation to subvert reality, lulling the viewer into his fugue dream. Prismatic colors soak idyllic imagery of waterfalls, palm trees, sandy shores, and rainbows, delaying the cognition of the grotesque elements. Humor tempers the landscapes; the absurdity makes predators palatable. Mimicking the slow-burn seduction of machine learning or the progression of CGI, Strauss masquerades impending dangers just enough to quell subconscious unease.
written by show co-organizer Marina May
IG: @marinamae_west
For all inquiries and appointments please contact: Nick Schleicher at nickschleicherart@gmail.com; IG: nick_schleicher or Monaco at info@monacomonaco.us