LaViolaBank Gallery is pleased to announce the debut solo show of New York based painter, Joey Archuleta. The exhibition will feature large-scale paintings as well as a selection of smaller works on panel and paper.

Joey Archuleta’s works presents and challenges us with distorted and considered reconstructions of objects and people most often taken for granted in their iconic forms. Archuleta’s work will often appear abstract at first glance, however in due time the individual works manifest their core imagery in all their solidity. Still-life and portraiture are recurring motifs in this regard, though not exclusively. A landscape is seen in Emotional Depravity, though the landscape turns out to be the direct aerial view of the artist’s studio floor. A dynamic still life of an exploding apple reveals itself in In the Event of Attack. A salt-shaker is the main protagonist in You Have Selected Incessant Starvation, where Archuleta yet again uses an everyday object as his primary focus, while at the same time fragmenting our usual point of perspective.

A closer inspection of Archuleta’s work also reveals its composite nature, not only in the overall ordering but also in individual details and parts. It is as if the raw use of paint, and the manic scribbles exist naturally on the found objects Archuleta works on. Interspersing Archuleta’s work, and often functioning as building stones, are lines that are reminiscent of early graffiti. These graphic twists and turns add yet another layer to works which exist through an assured combination of raw found materials, strong dabs of paint and a surface where the scratch means as much as the sheen. When combined, the imagery, the subjects and the technique make for a very urban expression – in addition there is a fluidity and energy within each piece that is suggestive of a single snap shot taken from a long series of events. Ultimately the composite nature of Joey Archuleta’s work presents us with vivid and personal interpretations of the artist’s environment from a continually moving perspective – as if seeing everything anew.