V1 Gallery presents
Part Time Lover
A solo exhibition by Alexis Ross
This group of paintings is a continuation on a theme common in most of my stuff. A sort of day-dream where the main character has had it with responsibility and is ready to flip life the bird. Ready to tune out the noise and do a complete U-turn with his life. While the characters in these paintings are all well over the age of forty, their actions and impulse is more on par with that of a twelve-year-old. Which is about the age I was when I was first ready to check out. The bricks and waves here come from the imaginations of every twelve-year-old Southern Californian kid that came before me. These were the images that were graffitied on the inside of the text books we had in school. These were some of the first things I learned to draw. It seemed like a much better way to pass the arduous school day. I always wanted to be somewhere else. No I was never dreaming of surfing. I was mostly happy to be practicing my hand inside those text books, while I pretended to follow along with the reading. Now I'm a grown-up and it still feels like I'm pretending to read along with the class sometimes. Waiting for the next bus, so I can hang my ass out the back window and tell them all to eat a turd.
- Alexis Ross, 2019
It is a tremendous pleasure and a long-time wish to present Part Time Lover by Alexis Ross.
Ross (born 1972) lives and works in Los Angeles, where he wanders the periphery and remains in center. He is a multi-disciplinary auteur who paints, draws, creates film sets, make installations and inhabit several wonderful characters. He is magnificent storyteller and an avid public bath man. Alexis Ross is a reluctant exhibitor, but shows include Cop & Blow, So Fine Arts, Los Angeles, A Brief History Of the 20th Century Spa Gangs Of Los Angeles, a site-specific installation in Gagnef, Sweden with Andreas Nilsson, and the now seminal Beautiful Losers exhibitions in Los Angeles and Tokyo. Part Time Lover is Alexis Ross’ first solo exhibition with V1 Gallery.
