1:1

Ashes/Ashes is pleased to present 1:1, an exhibition by Los Angeles–based artists Amir Nikravan and Paul Pescador. As an aspect ratio, the show’s title, 1:1, serves a dual purpose—it produces an overarching metaphor for the physical body and its index, as well as for two distinct yet aligned artistic practices. Tactile materials such as poured liquid, clay, and fabric produce transformative marks, which are as much the subject of the work as the forms they create. The residue of these acts becomes pervasive, as objects and actions transform into images which reference a continuous process of artistic production. An eroticized detachment from the human form and fetishization of the art object produces an air of queerness, forming a relationship which appears both melancholic and restrained. Paul Pescadors’ photographic series Crushes uses images as stand-ins for form. Utilizing readymade strategies, Pescador references the body through cropping and re-contextualization. Presentation and structure become the lens to address the personal and public within the artist’s practice. Surface becomes pervasive, linking the tactility of found materials to the human form. Amir Nikravan’s paintings and drawings use the artist’s body and weight to produce impressions that depict labor, repetition and exhaustion. Using the index as a site to enact strategies of representation, Nikravan performs and presents the collapse of object into image through transformative processes that result in the flattening of the physical into the pictoral. Amir Nikravan (born 1983, Los Angeles, CA) received an MFA from the University of California at Irvine, and a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. Selected solo exhibitions include: Masks, ARNDT Gallery, Singapore (2015); Aggregate, Jonathan Viner Gallery, London (2015); Merge Visible, Various Small Fires, Los Angeles (2014); Gemini, Pepin Moore, Los Angeles (2012); Internal, Contemporary Arts Center, Irvine (2011). Selected group exhibitions include: Amir Nikravan and Wes Noble, Luce Gallery, Turin (2014) and Folding Time Rhymes, Greene Exhibitions, Los Angeles (2013). Paul Pescador (born 1983, Coachella Valley, CA) received an MFA from the University of California at Irvine, and a BA from the University of Southern California. Selected solo projects include: Color/d, Park View, Los Angeles (2014); 6, 7 or 9, Anthony Greaney, Boston (2013); 3, 4, 5 or 8, The Vista Theater, Los Angeles (2012); and 1, 1 1/2, 2, Human Resources, Los Angeles (2011). Selected performances include: Duets (with David Gilbert), Performa 15, Colony, New York, (2015); Violet, metro PCS, Los Angeles (2015); Pink, UC Berkeley: Durham Studio Theater, Berkeley (2015); Orange, Hammer Museum with KCHUNG TV, Los Angeles (2014); Yellow and Turquoise, REDCAT, Los Angeles (2014).

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