DEVIN REYNOLDS

VAGUELY FAMILIAR

SEP 8 - OCT 27, 2019

Royale Projects is pleased to announce Vaguely Familiar, opening Sunday, September 8th and running through October 27th. This exhibition will be Devin Reynolds’ first solo show in Los Angeles.

The fusing of American nostalgia, graffiti, and surf and skate culture is revealed through works that utilize hand-painted signage and blue-collar materials such as house-paint, clay, and plywood. Reynolds’ paintings exhibit an intimate rhetoric of his personal experiences while blending motifs of everyday life. Recognizable imagery is disassociated from its original content by the addition of an unexpected vernacular that becomes a point of access for historical and current socio-political themes. Smaller scale abstract paintings reference and build upon other works in the exhibition. The use of transdisciplinary techniques, color, and shape, similarly forge compositions that evoke a familiarity that is not quite decipherable.

Dissecting the makeup of Reynolds identity, this body of work openly displays his internal battles with the permanence of death while addressing the complexity of being both white and black in America. He confronts these personal anecdotes with an often jarring satire of logos branding phrases such as “99¢ tears” and “inter family reparations” presented in large format lettering and vivid colors that overwhelm the senses and mimic the feeling of navigating the American cityscape.  

Raised in Venice, CA, Reynolds grew up working on fishing boats, scavenging flea markets with his mother, and surfing crudely painted boards emulating artists such as Drew Brophy and Sean Spoto, memories that have greatly informed his practice. Inspired by Barry Mcgee and Margaret Killgallen, his obsession with marking his alias on the sides of boxcars moved into the studio where graffiti still greatly informs the scale and application of materials used in his work today. Expanding from his roots as a street artist, Reynolds began teaching himself art history examining the various methods that icons such as Kerry James Marshall and Michael Ray Charles inform African American identity. 

Reynolds left Southern California for New Orleans, LA to study at Tulane University where he received his BA in Architecture. After completing a summer Residency at the Joan Mitchell Foundation in 2017, the artist was selected again for the Fall of 2019. Reynolds has exhibited at the Joan Mitchell Foundation, New York, NY; Catinca Tabacaru Gallery, New York, NY;Core Gallery, New Orleans, LA; The Chamber, Tacoma, WA; UNO Gallery St. Claude, New Orleans, LA; and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, LA where he was awarded “Best in Show” in Louisiana Contemporary in 2017.