Shag
Voyeur: New Paintings by Shag

Gallery I
Solo Exhibition

Opening reception - Saturday, November 22nd, 7-9pm

November 22, 2008 through December 20, 2008

NEW YORK, NY(November 3, 2008) —Jonathan LeVine Gallery is pleased to announce Voyeur, a solo exhibition featuring new works by Josh Agle, also known as Shag. For his second solo show at the gallery, the artist has created a new series of original paintings, cohesively linked by the theme of voyeurism. Shag’s signature style of sophisticated figures lounge within lavish interiors, accentuated by the artist’s mid-century modern design aesthetic. His allegorical cast of glamorous characters living in apathetic opulence and vapid luxury are skillfully rendered in stylized geometric forms and clean lines, using a vibrantly striking color palette.

With Voyeur, Shag refines and explores a theme that has always existed in his body of work. Many of his previous pieces have depicted hedonistic figures experiencing debauchery without consequence, expressionless and detached. In past works, he often included a figure observing inconspicuously. However, in this new series, the observers are much more overt. Each piece in the exhibition contains a voyer and a fish. The artist has said that the voyeur in each painting represents himself, while viewers of his paintings become voyeurs as well. “Being an artist gives me license to be a voyeur... When I was young and poor, I used to walk around my neighborhood almost every evening, just after dark. Many people had not yet closed their drapes or blinds, and I was able to look into their homes. I saw interiors through large picture windows: their good taste and bad, their family dynamic, what they were watching on television or eating for dinner, and what they felt comfortable wearing (or not wearing) at home. This was better than TV!”


To complement Shag’s work, the walls within the gallery’s Project Room will be covered in custom designed, flocked-velvet wallpaper featuring a multi-colored fish motif, created by the artist himself. Produced and installed in collaboration with Curio Wallcoverings, this will be the fourth custom wallpaper Curio has produced for installation at Jonathan LeVine Gallery (after collaborating with artists: Shepard Fairey, Lori Earley, and Adam Wallacavage on previous designs).


ABOUT THE ARTIST

Josh Agle, better known as Shag (a contraction of the last two letters of his first name and the first two letters of his last) is a painter, illustrator and designer based in Southern California. His initial intention to establish an illustration career became sidetracked when his original paintings began to garner considerable attention from galleries and collectors around the world. Since his first solo gallery show in 1997, Shag has had successful exhibitions in the US, Europe, Japan, and Australia.Agle has published several books, been the subject of a documentary film, as well as a musical. Currently the artist paints in a large studio with panoramic views of a wooded valley in the hills above L.A., part of a mid-century modern home which he shares with his wife and two children.