Nicholas Kontaxis

UTA Artist Space is pleased to present a new exhibition from rising young abstract expressionist painter Nicholas Kontaxis.

Catch Me will be the most ambitious solo exhibition of Nicholas’ career to date, featuring an expansive collection of never-before-seen paintings created over the last two years that showcase Nicholas’ stylistic evolution and artistic maturation. While these last two years were primarily defined by restrictions and confinements, Catch Me captures a spirit of freedom and experimentation.

The 26-year-old artist uses a battalion of unique idiosyncratic techniques with a variety of media on massive canvases, rendering vibrantly colored works of art brut that ring with joy and optimism. The paintings have a sublime, contemplative affect created by Nicholas' meticulous attention to pattern, texture and color. Presented on expansive canvases of varying materials, this structured chaos lends itself a hypnotic, visceral, uplifting experience in viewers.

Instinctively drawn to painting, the medium has provided Nicholas a conduit for expressing his notably distinct interior life. The artist was born with a brain tumor that has resulted in thousands of seizures over his lifetime, atypical motor function, and neurodiversity. His speech consists of short utterances, which often become the imaginative titles for his works and are documented while he paints: Hear the Rain, Got Issues, and Just One More Time, to name a few.

Nicholas has had numerous sold-out, solo shows in Los Angeles, London, Chicago, Atlanta, and Brooklyn. His paintings have garnered critical comparisons to Sam Francis and Jasper Johns, but remain singular in their raw and visceral anomaly.

“The extraordinary use of color and enormous scale of Nicholas’ paintings blow me away,” says Partner and Creative Director of UTA Fine Arts/Artist Space Arthur Lewis. “Watching him mature artistically and continually reinvent his body of work inspires my own recognition of the human capacity for growth and transformation. This is one of the most thrilling moments for UTA Artist Space and I’m grateful to have had this opportunity to work with Nicholas and his family.”

Nicholas Kontaxis (b. 1996) is a self-taught artist whose abstract expressionist paintings communicate a unique passion for life. Born with a brain tumor that causes significant and frequent seizures, he began painting as a teenager and has grown an expansive body of work. Solo exhibitions include West Contemporary (London), Heather James Fine Art (Palm Springs), Gilman Contemporary (Sun Valley), Tao (Chicago), and Anne O Art (Atlanta). His work has been commissioned by Adidas at Coachella, the Los Angeles Chargers, and Kaiser Permanente Hospitals, among other collectors.