Elmer Guevara

Lyles & King is pleased to present Recess, a solo exhibition of new paintings by Los Angeles-based artist Elmer Guevara. This is Guevara’s first solo exhibition in New York.

The golden, sometimes brutal, sunshine of Los Angeles permeates every crevice and corner, saturating every stop sign, every roof, every overgrown lawn, every purple and golden jersey donned by young Lakers fans, every bright new sneaker. Guevara’s paintings harness these colors and symbols of the city, offering a glimpse into the life of a young Salvadoran boy coming of age in an immigrant neighborhood of South Central LA in the 90s.

Guevara is a first generation Salvadoran whose parents immigrated to the United States in the 1980s to seek refuge from The Salvadoran Civil War (1979-92). He dives into this family history and narratives, and in this exhibition focuses on memories from childhood and earlier adolescence. There is an aura of fond nostalgia for everyday moments of the not-so-distant past: children dress up in homemade Halloween costumes, they draw in chalk on the sidewalk and compare the latest LA Gear sneakers.

Guevara uses a process of gel image transfers embedded in the figures’ flesh. The often obscured images range in content from family photographs to news clippings to film stills, all connecting in some way to the cultural hybridity they possess. Alluding to the invisible, yet potent, inherited traumas passed through generations, Guevara calls these moments “ghostly material”; or images transfers of the past and obfuscated memories, with the body being the container that holds these embodied traumas.

In Guevara’s paintings, the home is a safe space despite what darkness may lurk outside. He contrasts imagery of innocent childhood with darkness through ephemeral symbols such as homicide chalk drawings of bodies and blood on sidewalks as well as newspaper clippings and contemporary television imagery reporting on crimes, gang violence, and urban development.

In Waiting for Nightfall, a group of children are gathered on the front lawn, most of whom are different iterations of Guevara himself. Here, the artist considers class: homemade costumes, transforming front yards into playgrounds, and the pickup truck of a working parent. Downtown skyscrapers, a nod to the gentrification of Downtown Los Angeles, loom in the distance as a coyote and black cat stroll amongst the kids. Guevara highlights mundane memories and, to some extent, happier memories in an environment that is charged and stereotyped as unsafe.

Finding inspiration from historic painting compositions, Guevara weaves his family history with the present, capturing the warmth of youth and family in the face of inherited traumas and violence.

Elmer Guevara (b. 1990, Los Angeles) has had work exhibited at Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach, CA; Muzeo Museum and Cultural Center, Anaheim, CA; Lyles & King, New York, NY; Taubman Museum of Art, Roanoke, VA; Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; PM/AM Gallery, London, UK; M+B, Los Angeles, CA; and Barbati Gallery, Venice, IT; among others. His work is held in the public collections of California State University Long Beach, Long Beach, CA and Crocker Art Museum Permanent Collection, Sacramento, CA. Guevara lives and works in Los Angeles.