Alex Chaves

Also on view in the street-facing vitrine: Tyree Guyton "Doors"

The waiting room is calm but keeps the mind occupied. Please take a seat and wait, in Alex Chaves’ third solo show at Martos Gallery: Oaks of Righteousness.

Chaves’ new portraits are archetypes of women. These figures are embodied as warriors, seductresses, sleeping beauties, officers, and soldiers. The exhibition considers the representation of the female form within both combative and tranquil settings. Chaves’ work alludes to modern European masters with appropriated imagery from Gauguin, Degas, and Derain among others. His subjects are painted from life – fellow artists, collaborators, and muses supplant traditional figures of aristocratic portraiture in Chaves’ performative renditions.

For Oaks of Righteousness, Chaves presents his third monumental landscape — an homage to Andre Derain’s La Chasse (1938 – 1944). His reinterpretation includes Ancient Greek figures and electrified fauna superimposed upon the muted earth tones of Derain’s original.

Chaves furthers his exploration of language with large-scale painted “E” sculptures, reminiscent of the textiles and patterns in his paintings. The flattening of forms and use of symbology continues in the gridded tennis court paintings. Chaves tends to focus on sites of intimacy and conflict, whether they be in the natural world, the battleground, or the bedroom.

Please take your shoes off to experience Alex Chaves’ Oaks of Righteousness.

Alex Chaves (b. 1989 Summit, NJ) currently lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.

Select exhibitions include: “Dizzy Buchanan,” Martos Gallery, New York, NY (2017); “Fort Green,” Venus Over Manhattan, Los Angeles, CA (2016); “Goulding the Lolly,” Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, New York, NY (2016); and “Le domaine enchanté,” Galleria Acappella, Naples, Italy (2016); “Cygnus Loop,” Gallery Baton, Seoul, South Korea (2019); and “The Amerikan Green Cross,” Night Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2015).