Keith Rocka Knittel
Let it Yellow
September 9 – ­14, 2015

Opening reception: Thursday, September 10, 7 – ­10 PM

Please join us for performances taking place inside the exhibition:
Friday 9/11/15 7-10pm: Gautam Tejas Ganeshan
Saturday 9/12/15 9-11 pm: Carl Pomposelli, Steve Kado, TMO, Leslie Dick, John Hogan, and Keith Rocka Knittel

The work in Let it Yellow is process driven – performances build objects creating a syntax as gestures break down their materiality, starting the process over again. Art objects exist equally as both a means of representing the present and a remnant of the past, both combined to reflect upon the future.

The show is entered through a corridor of paintings of spinning, generic newspapers. Headlines declaring “World At War” and “Environmental Catastrophe” imbue the transitional space between the outside world and the gallery with the anxiety of a punchline that never lands. In the gallery, a room divider made from larger than life paintings of the artist’s cats doubles as a sound deadening wall. A grid of sixteen inch by nineteen inch abstract paintings, roughly eight feet wide by twelve feet tall in all, forms a large, fluid mosaic. Within the grid, vacant spaces invite the components to be rearranged on a whim. A stack of “$40 Paintings” ­ a series of black line paintings including a bedraggled cat toy beside the words “Secondary Nature,” and a phone jack with the phrase “Ride of Your Life” ­ sit atop a pedestal. The paintings may be viewed by digging through the stack, shuffling them in a constant flux of loopy narratives.

Assembled in part from previous works, some shown by Knittel in the Human Resources space when it was Cottage Home Gallery, a twelve foot high tower of cubes descending in size climbs toward the ceiling. The top of the tower can be viewed from the cut-­throughs in the wall of the former projection booth on the second floor of the gallery. From this room, viewers may observe the show and watch a video while sitting on a foam cube carved with an inviting seat.

Keith Rocka Knittel holds an MFA from CalArts and his work has been shown in contemporary art galleries and museums, most recently at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles as part of KCHUNG’s contribution to “Made in LA 2014,” and at 356 Mission in Los Angeles as part of “Another Cats Show.” He hosts a radio show on KCHUNG (kchungradio.org) titled “Everything Must Go! FM,” entering its third year of airing. He is currently a visiting lecturer at UC Riverside and lives and works in San Pedro, California.