Jake Cruzen

Jake Cruzen’s solo exhibition Bridget, Roosevelt, River, Toonie & JuJu presents a new body of large-scale paintings, all of which depict Cruzen’s family. For the past two decades, Cruzen has developed a practice all his own, which writer Milo Conroy describes as “a devotion to the homemade kind of magic that happens between your bedroom and kitchen… from a place that you know well but had not expected to be the entrance to something deeper."

Cruzen lives in a small mountain town, Crestline, CA, where the lines between being a caretaker, partner, and artist collapse into the surface of the paintings. These efforts are all one attitude for Cruzen, one which transposes his subjects into a fever pitch of the rural surroundings, equally generous and sentimental as they are coarse, maximalist. There is a sense that the paintings are proxies for home videos; unsteady footage finding dead animals in the woods, driving a toy ATV at 2mph, jujitsu choreographed to music playing in the adjoining room. Traces and energies of real life seep into the pores of the works while the subjects gaze into the future.

In addition to his work as a painter, Cruzen was an active member in the artist-run space Bed-Stuy Love Affair in New York, and co-founded Mother Culture in Los Angeles, both alongside friend and longtime collaborator Jared Madere.

This is Cruzen’s first solo exhibition in New York since 2017 and the first solo exhibition at Francis Irv. A companion text by Milo Conroy will accompany the exhibition.

Jake Cruzen (b. 1979, Los Angeles) lives and works in Crestline, CA. Recent solo and two person exhibitions include: Jake Cruzen and Jasper Spicero: Hillcrest, As It Stands, Los Angeles (2022); Wishbather, Mother Culture, Los Angeles (2020); Do You Believe in Blue Gold, Michael Thibault Gallery, Los Angeles (2017); Keep It Love, Madame X, New York (2017); Prince Cherrie, White Flag (with Jared Madere), St. Louis (2016); Jake Cruzen, Young Art, Los Angeles (2015); Kanacoka, Bed-Stuy Love Affair (with Joseph Geagan), New York (2014). Previous group exhibitions include A Fools Game Played By Cowards, curated by Aria Dean and Francis Irv, hosted by As It Stands, Los Angeles (2022); Butterflies on a Cruise Ship, Kai Matsumiya, New York (2019); Loopstar, Mother Culture, Los Angeles (2018); Jared Madere presents: Bed-Stuy Love Affair, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2015); Water from the Nile, Lodos Gallery, Mexico City (2015); Seau Banco Carbon, Bed-Stuy Love Affair / Tomorrow Gallery, New York (2015).