Downtown, Los Angeles
Brian Sharp
Carry Onnnn
As IsAs Is is pleased to present Brian Sharp: Carry Onnnn, an exhibition of thoughtfully conceived and elegantly executed oil on linen paintings in various sizes featuring an array of abstract and semi-abstract motifs by this mid-career (b. 1974) Los Angeles based artist. His third show at this gallery, Brian Sharp: Carry Onnnn is presented in conjunction with Annabel Osberg: Unexplained Phenomenon. Carry Onnnn, the title the artist selected for his exhibition, suggests at least two things. It is, on the one hand, an expression of artistic continuity; of one thing leading to another, much as the paintings in this show would seem to flow naturally from the ones that preceded them. It is, on the other hand, an expression of break; as in a piece of carry-on luggage moved via air travel from one place to somewhere else, possibly quite far away. The allusion to air travel here is not incidental as this was a key development in the history of neoliberal globalization and just the kind of oblique socio-political reference Sharp can make even while otherwise staying firmly planted in his own lane as an artist and painter. A literary critic once distinguished between two kinds of criticism. So-called “canny” criticism begins in a deeply methodical understanding of its own discourse—itself no mean feat—whereas “uncanny” criticism, while it proceeds from the same rich body of knowledge, achieves greater insight by somehow escaping the bounds of rational argument. With this new show sitting atop a decades-long career of similarly provocative artworks by the artist, it should by now be apparent that Sharp has engineered just such an escape.