Mr. Jonathan Edelhuber at Over the Influence Gallery in downtown Los Angeles poses an assertive stance of fun with the concept of skull form to help us bring a new idea of beauty with endless permutations. The real fun is in how the artist makes use of what is typically reminiscent of boneyards, despotic totalitarian graves, etc. Death is palpably imminent yet successfully dissuaded from his compositions, making his artworks an experience of playful, innocuous, courage at toying with our precepts of what lies hidden behind smiling pretty faces.

The artist approaches each canvas spontaneously, using his finished figure to then add endless color choices, textures, contours, etc. The fact the artist chooses to brighten rather than dull our experience is a good one. A tasteful one. In helping us leave the fear of permanent inanimation, where all we are left with is a motionless stillborn skeleton as the flesh rots away organically – sans those who have preferred to avoid the possibility altogether and have elected incineration. It is these kinds of thoughts which are purely uneasy, if not distributing, to human life, that Mr. Edelhuber elects us to move us beyond. This is the confidence of the artist who strives to make permanent goodness, as a perfected end to being human.

So much of being human, after all, is our sensible experience of our bodies. So much of human life, then, is in the need to inform the body with better movement as the cell counts continue to divide. Towards what goal? Isn’t it universally agreeable that the goal must be a better tomorrow? So then to tangle with the thought of death, but to be absent any insinuation of decay, but instead of the eternal light of living color, is laudable.

The real excitement is in the bespoken possibilities of the artist in creating his works towards a personal flavor. That yes, while he may use blacks, they are not directed towards death. But towards an eternal presence. This is what good art is. It creates beauty. It does not seek to destroy what is, but to improve upon it.

For more information, please contact the gallery:

Over the Influence

833 East 3rd Street
Los Angeles CA 90013
+1 310 921 5933

la@overtheinfluence.com
Open: Tuesday – Sunday 11 – 6