Joshua Petker

Drawing inspiration from historical works, which are intentionally kept anonymous, Joshua Petker’s (b. 1979, Los Angeles, CA) paintings rely instead on their ability to evoke the familiar and uncanny, teasing and tantalizing. Rather than draw specific conclusions from these juxtapositions, his work unleashes an exhilarating proliferation of meanings and pictorial puzzles. The artist offers the history of art and visual culture reshuffled—Picabia, Bronzino, soviet era cartoons. Petker makes these his own and the outcome is a timeless dreamlike mix of perspective and emotionality.

Joshua Petker completed his MFA at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in 2015 and his BFA at Evergreen State College in 2002. He has recently had solo exhibitions at Anat Ebgi Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; and Rachel Uffner Gallery, New York, NY. His work has also been recently shown at National Arts Club, New York, NY; albertz benda, New York, NY; Spurs Gallery, Beijing, China; Carl Kostyál Gallery, Stockholm, Sweden; La Loma Projects, Pasadena, CA; ASHES/ASHES, New York, NY; Park Life Gallery, San Francisco, CA; Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica, CA; and ACME, Los Angeles, CA. Petker recently completed an artist-in-residence with The Fores Project, London, UK. Petker lives and works in Los Angeles.