Opening Reception: Saturday March 21 7–10 pm

Human Resources is pleased to announce Emily Joyce: Famous Potatoes and other related works.  Joyce’s first solo exhibition in Los Angeles, Famous Potatoes and other related works features an on-and-off-the-wall installation of kinetic, optical, and symbolic abstract paintings. The exhibition is comprised of new works from three ongoing projects, including: free-standing mixed media paintings from the Famous Potatoes series; 13 optically charged large-scale screen prints from the Sun Burn series, and geometric acrylic on canvas paintings from the Captcha series. 

The Famous Potatoes paintings feature painting rags from the artist’s studio displayed within the squares of a rigid black grid. Upon closer examination, the viewer sees that each rag is in fact impossibly identical. This haphazard and gestural element of the painting process has been transformed into a digital replica. At random intervals a fan starts and blows the rags up momentarily revealing a hieroglyphic-like ideogram beneath. 

The Sun Burn series is based on the optical phenomenon of after-image and chromatic vibration. These large-scale works on paper are hung from the ceiling as a sort of theatrical curtain that the viewer can traverse and experience from all sides. In this way the physical objectness of what initially was experienced as a visual phenomenon is exposed, like getting to peek back-stage

The Captcha paintings (inspired by Magritte’s floating orbs) take their titles from the internet visual security feature“Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart (CAPTCHA)” These paintings are made up of three distinct layers of space: a foreground and background of floating orbs and a hand-painted mesh-like plane of parallel black lines which conceals the background orbs. For the installation, the paintings are embedded in a wall relief of hundreds of bricks that have been wrapped in white paper and stacked into a huge triangle that covers the wall. 

Emily Joyce (born 1976 in Arlington Heights, Illinois) lives and works in Los Angeles, California. Joyce studied at the Glasgow School of Art and received her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, in 1998. From 1999-2001 she was a Core Artist-in-residence at the Glassell School of Art, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Texas. In 2002 she was an artist in residence at Le Pavillon at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, France. Joyce has exhibited her prints, paintings, and collages internationally for the last 15 years including recent solo exhibitions at Inman Gallery, Houston, Texas (2013); Elephant, Los Angeles, California (2013); Compact Gallery, San Luis Obispo, California (2012); and Sara Meltzer Gallery, New York, New York (2004). Her recent group exhibitions include Snack Time, Campbell Hall Art Gallery, North Hollywood, California (2015); Machine Project Field Guide to the Gamble House, The Gamble House, Pasadena, California (2014); Los Angeles Chez Vous, Mains d’Oeuvres, Paris, France (2013); Garden Party, FOCA, Los Angeles, California (2013); XYZ: The Geometric Impulse in Abstract Art, The Torrance Art Museum, California (2012), which she curated with Jessica Halonen; This & That, Ricard Foundation, Paris, France (2012); and Wall Power, Brand Library and Art Galleries, Glendale, California (2011). Joyce’s works are in the public collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas; The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota; and the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, California, among others. 

The artist would like to make a special thanks to Inman Gallery in Houston, Texas. Thanks also to Devin McNulty, Gary Murphy, Mark Allen, Ian Byers-Gamber, and Lucas Wrench. This project was brought to Human Resources by Devin McNulty and David Fenster.