Over the Influence, Los Angeles is pleased to present Marching Band to Nowhere, a solo exhibition by American artist Adam Beris. The artist’s second solo exhibition with the gallery, Marching Band to Nowhere features a collection of new paintings developed over the past year. The exhibition will open on 01 May 2021 and run through 13 June 2021.
Beris’s latest body of works highlights a desire for normalcy triggered after last year’s global chaos. As Beris observed the country grieving, as well as simultaneously shaming, protesting, and rejoicing, it struck him how vividly the world goes through the motions without ever reaching their goals - like a marching band endlessly playing on and on.
Beris’s unique process of applying paint straight from the tube playfully reconstructs everyday objects and people's heads in profile. In Beris's new work these vibrant and loosely rendered objects have been flippantly discarded – confined to rooms with barred windows, strewn across blades of grass, and thrown carelessly onto wagons.
In Anxious Caravan the wagon itself seems to be stuck or abandoned – its destination unknown, its wheels glued to the same spot, or maybe even spinning in the mud. The wheels are seen again in Holding Hands, Tumble Weeds, and Teacher’s Pet representing the cyclical nature of the wheel both stationary and in movement. Meanwhile the grids reference the desire to organize and make sense of a chaotic world through repetition. Trying to find meaning in the visual cacophony of his own creations, he has also compiled the replicated symbols into organized gridlike patterns, thereby satisfying the desire for titles, hierarchy, and grouping things together. In repetitive patterns and forms found throughout the works, Beris continues to emphasize the title of the show - A Marching Band to Nowhere that is loudly going round and round despite the artist’s valiant attempts to deconstruct it.
About Adam Beris Born in Milwaukee, WI in 1987, Adam received a dual degree in Painting and Creative Writing from Kansas City Art Institute in 2009. His work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions across the United States including at Y53, Los Angeles, CA, USA (2018); Fabien Castiner Gallery Los Angeles, CA, USA (2017); The Late Show, Kansas City, MO, USA (2011). Beris was also included in the exhibition Bounding Boundaries at the MCC Longview Cultural Center in Lee’s Summit, MO, USA (2013).
