Gaia

Gaia in NYC (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Gaia: Urban Interventions
December 10 to December 17

Gaia: Urban Interventions Location: Montserrat House, 2016 9th St. @ U St., Washington, DC

Gaia will have a full-room installation at the (e)merge Art Fair, September, 22- 25 (info).

Irvine Contemporary is pleased to present Gaia: Urban Interventions, an exhibition of new works on canvas and panel and on-site installations. Exhibition location: Montserrat House (2016 9th St. @ U St., Washington, DC).

Following on recent projects and exhibitions in Chicago, Baltimore, New York, and Atlanta, Gaia returns to Washington for his second solo exhibition with Irvine Contemporary. Over the past two years, Gaia has been expanding his imagery for interventions in urban environments to addresses the history of cities, urban design, and the failed utopias of modernist re-development. Gaia’s recent imagery of the icons of modernist design and architecture are now combined with his “messenger animal” imagery, most notably his recent use of the carrier pigeon, a bird associated with human communication and wartime sacrifice.

Gaia’s street work and studio work follow a double logic for the contexts of sites and locations. Gaia has become a master of placement on city walls streets and street locations where his work performs a reverse-vandalism, providing viewers an engaging surprise and moment of reflection where there once was merely decay, abandonment, desensitizing neglect, or the numbing regulation visual space. In his studio work, Gaia brings the questions of the contemporary city and the environment into layered reflections on canvas and panel through a combination prints, paintings, and de-collage works with found materials. His craftsmanship in print-making, drawing, and direct painting cut across all forms of his street and studio works.

Gaia will also be exhibiting with Irvine Contemporary at the (e)merge art fair, September 22 – 25, Capitol Skyline Hotel, Washington DC.

About the Artist

Gaia grew up in New York City and recently graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, Maryland. His studio work and gallery projects have been exhibited in Brooklyn, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington, DC. His work has been documented and featured in several recent books on urban art, including, Beyond the Street: The 100 Leading Figures in Urban Art (Berlin, 2010). Gaia lives and works in Baltimore, MD and Brooklyn, NY.

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