To stage his latest exhibition at the Naked Eye Studio in Los Angeles, artist Jesse Draxler has gone into overdrive.
Current until June 7, “U&I” does not only display his latest works, from painted panels to concept sculptures to digital media, all housed in a purpose-built and artist-designed environment. Opening night saw live performances from artists such as industrial noise musician God Is War, as well as screenings of long-form videos that chronicle Draxler’s creative process, as well as servings of pizza.
“It’s been a world-building exercise for my work,” the artist told Artnet News of the exhibition’s conceptualization and installation. “I feel like my works have never been shown properly, or in a place that was designed for it, or in its true scale so you can see it all at once.”
According to Draxler, “U&I” spanned a year, emerging from her desire to flesh out her “inner world” and to do so independently, not through a gallery. The result has been billed as the artist’s most significant solo exhibition to date, in which his singular aesthetic is left untouched.
Jesse Draxler, Feed. Courtesy of the artist.
Draxler’s characteristics run deep: his paintings, photographs and collages, often featuring startling manipulations of the human face or other visual distortions, arrive in black and white, creating atmospheric tension as much as existential dread. It’s the work, Draxler said, that channels his ongoing explorations into transformation — “transformation through identity, identity through transformation.”
“I am very interested in relationships, but especially in the relationships between a person and himself, a person and his various cells, a person and his subconscious, a person and his environment”, he added, “how these relationships inform our perceptions and create each of our own unique realities in which we each live.
Jesse Draxler, tar ghost. Courtesy of the artist.
To describe his work as dark or nihilistic, however, might be as superficial as saying he uses shades of black and white because he is color blind. “The absurd makes more sense to me,” he said, pointing out that color sometimes appears in his art, mostly in metallic or flesh tones.
Also present in his work? The Internet. Flipping through the monograph that accompanies Draxler’s show, titled The world is mine and I’m thinking of you, is to encounter narrative screenshots of tweets, Twitter polls, and text messages. They talk about a life led online, while adding this touch, yes, of absurdism to the procedure.
hardcover book, The world is mine and I’m thinking of you (2023). Photo courtesy of the artist.
Which is fitting for an artist who first found recognition on microblogging site Tumblr around 2007. It was a moment in time that Draxler described as “a big moment that stuck with me. It seems pure in a way. So much so that his practice continues to be shaped by the community he found on the platform.
“Now my whole practice has been focused on enhancing the digital image,” he said. “Since most people are going to see my work online, I’m going to do my work for that audience.”
But as an artist from the early days of social media, Draxler admitted to encountering quite a bit of backlash from the fine art world. ” Do not do that. Tumblr is not serious,” he said.
Not that that has stopped him from exhibiting since 2016 (his digital work was the most recently presented at Art Dubai in 2023), and receiving commissions from musicians like Nine Inch Nails and Zola Jesus, as well as brands like Alexander McQueen. “I feel like I’ve been validated to some degree,” he added.
Jesse Draxler, Liquid Swords (retail). Courtesy of the artist.
“U&I,” then, could be considered the high point of his practice so far, though Draxler prefers another term: “He’s got a very cyclical nature.”
He points to a particular sculpture in the exhibit: a bottle IV filled with X-Acto blades, hundreds and hundreds of them. Far from being just a bold statement, they represent the countless blades that Draxler used (and kept) to cut and arrange his collage pieces, which just happen to hang on the gallery wall.
“Everything feeds everything else,” he said. “I basically bring my art studio there. This is the full picture; it is the serpent biting its tail. It’s a world unto itself.
“U&I” can be viewed at Naked Eye Studio, 1443 W Jefferson Blvd, Los Angeles, through June 7. The accompanying hardcover book, The world is mine and I’m thinking of youmaybe pre-ordered here.
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