Drawing inspiration from historical works, which are intentionally kept anonymous, the paintings of Joshua Petker (b. 1979, Los Angeles, US) rely instead on their ability to evoke the familiar and uncanny, teasing and tantalizing. Rather than draw specific conclusions from these juxtapositions, his work unleashes an exhilarating proliferation of meanings and pictorial puzzles. The artist offers the history of art and visual culture reshuffled—Picabia, Bronzino, soviet era cartoons. Petker makes these his own and the outcome is a timeless dreamlike mix of perspective and emotionality.
Petker completed his MFA at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in 2015 and his BFA at Evergreen State College in 2002. He has exhibited his work recently at La Loma Projects, Pasadena, CA; ASHES/ASHES, New York, NY; Park Life Gallery, San Francisco, CA; Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica, CA; and ACME, Los Angeles, CA. Petker lives and works in Los Angeles.