SUN SHINES

Jane Parshall + Joshua Edward Bennett

October 25 – December 08, 2019

Central Park Gallery
1045 Santee Street No. 405 Los Angeles, California 90015 

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Joshua Edward Bennett designs dimensional wall works that serve as wayfinders for personal introspection. Using brightly-colored and reflective materials in bold, graphic compositions, Bennett’s pieces ask, sometimes shout, for one to stop and acknowledge their surroundings. The artist’s psychedelic signage is not overt in its import, be it a warning, regulatory or guidepost. It’s more important that the sign identifies a space for exchange. How to read it and where it points is open to interpretation. Working serially like Parshall, Bennett’s work on view spans discreet investigations into warning colors pulled from nature, to those with a Day-Glo intensity found more often in science fiction. Both artist’s return to familiar color combinations of yellow and black, red and blue in their approaches to addressing or confounding signification. 

Bennett’s pieces for Sun Shines are collected around the form of the conduit, that when activated by the viewer permitting the free flowing of psychic energy imparted onto them. This exchange, visually traveling through the tunnel, is a means for viewers in the space to collectively participate in the experience of their imaginary spatial realm. These channels spill their energy into the faint grey openings in Parshall’s paintings. The light bouncing from their acrylic surfaces is mirrored in the diagonal brushstrokes of Parshall’s Untitled (TBD) and Ear. The exhibition is activated by the sunlight as it carves an arc through the gallery over the course of the day.

-Jared Dyer