Philip Argent

Shoshana Wayne Gallery is pleased to announce its second exhibition of paintings by Philip Argent.

Argent’s abstract, multi-layered canvases utilize the visual language of new media while remaining rooted in a formalist painting tradition. Clean, hard-edged bands of flat color traverse fields of eye-popping hues, creating movement within each canvas that is akin to neon lights streaming past a car window at night. The organization of form recalls the pop-up ‘windows’ of a computer screen opening up to reveal frame after frame of solid ground or atmospheric fields. Additional patterned areas suggest the inclusion of a painterly, fractal landscape amidst the pristine surfaces and modular units.

Argent’s work references the visual culture of the West Coast and Las Vegas, where he has lived for the last ten years, including commercial packaging logos, rave flyer graphics, and dance music album covers. His ‘virtual’ landscapes are often produced in series, much like the process of digital manipulation used in graphic design. Repetition of specific motifs recall the sampling and looped beats of techno music, with each new composition building on a set of familiar shapes and forms.

Philip Argent’s work has been the subject of solo exhibitions in New York and Berlin. He is featured in 21 Paintings from LA, Robert V. Fullerton Art Museum, California State University, San Bernardino, as well as recent exhibitions including Neo Painting, The Young Um Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea and The Magic Hour, Neue Galerie am Landesmuseum Joanneum, Graz, Austria.

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Philip Argent