Committed to a celebration of and conversation around art (pop & fine), we think it makes sense that we’d showcase original works by contemporary artists. As such we’ve started profiling a recent exhibition or series by artists in our community. This Tuesday’s artist Joshua Cave, a BX/BKLYN-based painter, sculptor, and installation artist. You’ll find commentary and personal reflection on his work in the following post. If you’ve something to show the editorial staff and the rest of the Curator readership, email editor@curatormagazine.com.
Things is Joshua Cave’s most recent series of paintings.
Born Januray 21st, 1986 in Worcester, MA, Joshua Cave was nurtured under the bias optimism of his mother. Through his childhood and adolescence she continued to praise every mark of ink, pencil or paint he made, despite his frustration with nearly all results. Nevertheless, he went on to receive a Bachelor of Fine Arts, and subsequently move to New York City to pursue painting, sculpture and installation. He continues to work, and live with his wife and landlord’s cat in New York City.
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
Cave On Things: “I have come up with no better title for my current body of paintings than Things. Although a vague and somewhat benign word, I have found that any and all “things” are integral to my pursuit of truth. Interested in the elusive quality of inherent value both in art and humanity, I have been attempting to layer significant and insignificant things as defined by mine and others attractions, in hopes of arriving at a the creation of an alternative thing of inherent value, the painting itself. It seems sincerity is all that separates thing from nothing. I am trying to separate my work from nothing by making it receptive to something.”
A statement about the artist’s practice from a journal entry:
I keep thinking I have stumbled upon some realization that will help me to resolve my current paintings, but each realization applied only confronts me with a new series of possible decisions, and the paintings remain unresolved. There is no narrative I adhere to, which leaves the work open to a myriad of directions none of which promise an end. I keep asking myself, what am I attempting? And the only answer I can muster at this time is to say that I am pursuing rest without predetermining my process of aesthetic. I want the paintings to mature to a point of rest, but while they grow uncomfortable they never become comfortable. Conflictingly, I am of the belief that comfortable is not a worthy end, and often serves to weaken the work. Nevertheless, I, like many, find comfort in a discernible form of rest— that, to break free from it is to attempt to spend the night on a concrete slab. I am not comfortable on that slab, and I imagine few are. Yet, I believe finding comfort there is necessary to communicate with an aspect of our humanity less favored by our culture, but nonetheless true.
Cave’s work has been displayed most recently at:
The New York Center for Art & Media Studies
First Things’ Gallery
He is represented by Outlet Gallery.
