"Paint Aquarium" by Devin Troy Strother
Good Mother Gallery Los Angeles is pleased to present "Paint Aquarium" a one night performance by Los Angeles-based artist Devin Troy Strother.
"In my practice, performance represents an effort to transcend the conventional two-dimensional immortality inherent in portraiture. By physically incorporating my own body into the work, I create a form of sculpture that is both visceral and chaotic. This approach resonates with the principles of pop art and the acceptance of imperfection.
The deviation from creating straightforward paintings has led me on a more compelling journey toward a truly performative painting practice. This manifests not only through performance with paint but also through the application of paint to cut pieces of paper and other objects, which are then layered onto a canvas.
During those years, I grappled with the question of what a painter could achieve. It became increasingly clear to me that the essence of painting lay in the subject matter rather than in technique, plasticity, appearance, or surface.
While these elements might find their place, they were secondary to the primary concern for me—and for many visual artists—of what we should paint or create."
This performance was originally performed at @v1gallery/eighteen gallery in Copenhagen in 2020 for the show
I’M JUST A PAINTER
ALL I HAVE IS PAINT AND MAYBE A LIL
BIT OF HOPE.
Devin Troy Strother lives and works in California, USA. His practice—which spans painting, printmaking, sculpture, mixed-media work, and installation—is united by humour and a engement in contemporary politics. Whilst the work maintains a vibrant and playful aesthetic, its content muses on the multifarious, both overt and concealed, injuries to human dignity in our society and often adresses black stereotypes and well as familiar racist motifs and memorabilia. In this way the works reveal profound reflections on identity made all the more powerful in his lightness of touch. His often sly titles offers a punchline to his compositions visual humour.
Recent solo exhibitions include: The Black Man Inside, Broadway Gallery, New York, USA (2023), Painting type shit, Ruttkowski68, Cologne, Germany (2022), Durag activities, Over The Influence, Bangkok, Thailand (2022), Undercover Brother, The Pit, Los Angeles, USA (2021), Smoking and Painting, Broadway Gallery, New York, USA (2021), I’m just a painter all I got is paint and maybe a lil bit of hope, Eighteen, Copenhagen, Denmark (2020-21), Lignes Noir, Ruttkowski68, Paris, France (2019), Twinkle Toes, Nevven Gallery, Gothenburg, Sweden (2019) Flagrant Foul, Over The Influence, Central Hong Kong (2019), and Wade In The Water, V1 Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark (2019). If These Hands Could Talk is his third solo exhibition with Eighteen & V1 Gallery.