On view this February at Hashimoto Contemporary: Wild Animal, a solo exhibition by San Francisco-based artist Casey Gray, his third with the gallery. Utilizing his signature process of complex masking techniques and acrylic spray paint, the artist’s latest body of paintings, sculptures and works on paper are a meditation on the vibrancy of life as seen through the animal kingdom.
Drawing from his experience as a new father, and the chaotic stasis of the last two years to reconsider both subject and audience, Gray narrows his vision into a singular, charming topic; a colorful world of dynamic animals in action. The exhibition is a direct extension of the artist’s recent residency at The Internet Archive in San Francisco from 2020–21. During his residency, Gray used the Archives’s vast magazine cover art collection as a source for representation, specifically focusing on the dramatic Adventure and Nature Magazine illustrations of the early 20th century.
Gray re-contextualizes the animals from the covers, instead imagining them as plastic children’s toys, into two obsessively composed window box paintings central to the show. In the first, a meticulously rendered feral herd of mammals, snakes and birds intermix around a large bonsai tree with a heightened sense of alert. In the second, a school of fish, sharks and other aquatic creatures clash with a deep sea diver in a powerful fight for survival. Each layered still life arrangement offers a sense of excitement, bewilderment and sentimentality for the outdoors in its theater and spectacle. Their interactions of the wildlife and their placement in space create a narrative tension that mirrors the emotional turmoil of this day and age.
On view through February 26th at 804 Sutter Street, San Francisco CA 94109.