STRANGE TERRAIN
Gregory King
May 4-12, 2024
Opening reception: Saturday May 4, 6-9pm
Keystone Art Space is pleased to present Strange Terrain, a solo exhibition featuring works by California artist Gregory King. The work in this collection is informed by King’s lifelong political concern for the tension between humans and the environment, and with our scientific progress, as the age of climate change has taken root.
King elaborates in a statement: “We are making the Earth alien to us. We have the technological means to do miraculous things as much as we can render our world uninhabitable, but too often we hope someone else is minding the situation as we doomscroll on our phones and buy shares in AI companies. The conflict between the creative and the destructive within us grips me, as a far better–and healthier–world feels so close to realization at times. From gob smacked awe at such achievements as the James Webb Space Telescope to abject fear when we reach an annual global heat record, I feel conflicted about making art, as it seems like such a small gesture in the face of it all. But we are also at the dawn of AI, which poses dangers to the work of artists, so my emotions are tempered by the need to make, rather than to collapse in paralysis. And, perhaps ironically, I have wanted to make patient, time-consuming work with oils and canvas again–after a long hiatus from painting–as a rebellious response to the invasion of AI in image-making. What feels healthy to me is to re-invest in my natural abilities, and accept ‘imperfections’, rather than adopt the uncanny smoothness that so much AI-assisted visual media possesses. And while a lot of my older work was leading more and more into abstraction, I’m currently interested in exploring representation, where a poetic ‘storytelling’ impulse guides a narrative taking place within and between pieces. This ‘narrative’ wavers between the personal/private and outward, more socio-political propositions, but it is set within a world beset by environmental and technological pressures."
About the Artist
Gregory King has made visual art, films, and music since the late 20th century, using a highly arcane methodology that cycles through concepts of time, physics, spiritual practice, the urban environment, technology, and climate change. He was a member of the innovative ‘indie classical’ band Rachel’s, with whom he toured the US and Europe from 1994 to 2006. He has shown his work at galleries, museums, alternative spaces and film festivals in many large cities, and holds a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute, and an MFA from Hunter College. He lives in South Pasadena, California with his wife and son.