Juxtapoz Magazine – The Still Life is the “Pith” of Painting @ Hashimoto Contemporary, Los Angeles

Hashimoto Contemporary is pleased to present Pith, a group exhibition featuring Stephen D’Onofrio, Karen Lederer, John Slaby and We Are Out of Office. Drawing from art history, each of the artists’ work nods to the rich visual legacy of still life painting and add their own playful, vibrant take on the contemporary practice.

Throughout the exhibition, the interrelated realms of nature and the man-made world mingle and blend; wildlife is manicured, floral arrangements arrayed with exuberance. The grafted trees of Stephen D’Onofrio display a bounty of fruits in contained vessels, displaying the human intervention of natural space. Conversely, John Slaby’s compositions display nature reclaiming urban space. Each of the artists explore spatial volume and flatness, pushing and pulling the visual space between tightly rendered moments and abstracted suggestions. Karen Lederer employs printmaking and painting practices to create layered interior scenes, imbuing her flora with frenetic energy and movement within their confined vases. We Are Out of Office, comprised of a collaborative couple from the Netherlands, similarly create sculptural works and paintings with vivid personalities.

The four artists featured in the exhibition interplay tightly rendered moments with flattened, graphic gestures creating spaces that are illusory but grounded in the every day, distilling the root of each scene to the Pith.