Installation photo credit: Brica Wilcox

Opening reception: Saturday, January 13, 4-6PM

Vielmetter Los Angeles presents a selection of new works by Lavaughan Jenkins, Mario Joyce, Raffi Kalenderian, and Kiriakos Tompolidis in the Greenhouse, January 13 – March 9, 2024.

Included in the exhibition are recent paintings on panel by Boston-based Lavaughan Jenkins — highlighting the artist’s manner of exuberant impasto and ingenious sense of color — Jenkins debuts his “love portal” series. Inspired by specific texts by James Baldwin and Nikita Gill the love portals act as a record of moments and reminders of lost loves and past relationships. The varying color spectrums and radiating vortexes within each work are carefully calibrated in resonance with each of the painting’s specific memories, which the titles then allude to.

Also on view are works by Los Angeles-based artist Mario Joyce, whose figurative paintings are rich in texture and meaning, informed by his autobiographical and historical research. Comprised of carefully sourced vintage collage materials, soil from his rural Ohio family farm, and oil and acrylic paint on canvas, the artist’s alluring compositions reveal a poetic and personal sense of storytelling about the experiences of growing up in marginalized communities.

Continuing his distinct exploration of the possibilities of portraiture, Los Angeles-based artist Raffi Kalenderian presents an array of new smaller-format oil paintings on canvas. Kalenderian’s radiant depictions of friends and fellow artists in various poses and environments capture moments accentuated by a celebratory moodiness as if windows of intimacy where the artist, the subject, and the viewer commingle amidst textured details, bold colors, and elaborate geometrical patterns ever-balancing the real and the surreal.

The presentation is rounded out with the paintings of Berlin-based Kiriakos Tompolidis — whose paintings incorporate references to his German-Greek identity, incorporating motifs, patterns, and elements from his upbringing and family lineage, as well as his current life and objects associated with classical Greek culture. Tompolidis weaves together a narrative that explores his cultural heritage, as well as fosters empathy and understanding towards the immigrant experience and our present-day global migration crisis. The flattened perspective and figures throughout his compositions further evoke Greek theater, both in the aesthetic of two-dimensional staging and by directly addressing the audience with soliloquies and asides.

Lavaughan Jenkins (b. 1976 Pensacola, FL) is a painter, printmaker, and sculptor currently working in Boston, MA. He received a BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2005. In 2019 Jenkins was awarded the James and Audrey Foster Prize by the Institute of Contemporary Art / Boston. In 2016, he was named Emerging Artist of the year at Kingston Gallery in Boston, MA, Jenkins is a recipient of the 2015 Blanche E. Colman Award and in 2002 received the Rob Moore Grant in Painting. He has exhibited his work most recently at venues such as Abigail Ogilvy Gallery (Boston), The Painting Center (NY), Suffolk University Gallery (Boston), and Oasis Gallery (Beijing). His work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston.

Mario Joyce is a self-taught African American artist based in Los Angeles. His process began early and was heavily influenced by prejudices experienced growing up Black and Queer in rural Ohio. He uses genealogical research, soil from the Ohio he grew up on, carefully sourced vintage collage materials, and oil paint to explore how American History is steeped in selective storytelling that neglects to share the experiences of marginalized communities. Mario is a 2023 alum of Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, has recently completed the Pratt>FORWARD residency at New Lab in Brooklyn Navy Yard, exhibited with UTA Artspace in Atlanta, and recently closed his solo exhibition with Sakhile&Me in Frankfurt. His work is privately owned by many collectors throughout the United States and abroad.

Raffi Kalenderian graduated with a BFA from UCLA in 2004. His work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions at University Art Museum, Long Beach; Kunstmuseum St Gallen, St Gallen, Switzerland; the Saatchi Gallery, London, UK; Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA; Nassima Landau Foundation, Tel Aviv, Israel; Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY; Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zurich, Switzerland; Tif Sigfrids, Comer, Georgia; McEvoy Foundation for the Arts, San Francisco, CA; Buchmann Galerie, Berlin; Galerie Lefebvre & Fils, Paris; Lundgren Gallery, Palma de Mallorca, Space; Eleven Rivington, New York, NY; and Brand New Gallery, Milan. His work is in the collections of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Minneapolis Institute of Art, and Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Kiriakos Tompolidis (b. Essen, 1997) is a painter of Greek origin who works and resides in Berlin. He was an artist in residence at The La Brea Studio Artist Residency (January 2023) and has exhibited his work in Mexico, Germany, and the United States.