Eric Wesley

Eric Wesley

Work from “Daily Progress Status Reports” at Bortolami, New York.

“An artist who often thematizes various rubrics of success and failure, Wesley’s newest works are large paintings that depict “Daily Progress Status Reports.” Each DPS is a blank form for assigning and evaluating the efficiency of a workday; broken up by the hours of the day (from 10:00 am and 6:00 pm), it has space for delegating an “assignment” for each hour and a box to note whether or not these tasks have been finished satisfactorily. Wesley’s paintings show these DPS worksheets after they have been “completed”: scribbled on, evaluated, crumpled up, stained, faded and folded.
Wesley constantly reinvents his means of working — each body of work bears little if any resemblance to previous projects — and for these new works he experiments with “trade secrets” of painting, using oils, acrylics, airbrushing and various methods of screenprinting and stenciling. The painstaking trompe-l’œil technique at which he ultimately arrived contrasts extravagantly with the apathy and ennui which the marks on each form convey, making the exhibition a droll meditation on artistic labor and the constant demand to be productive.
Eric Wesley (born 1973, Los Angeles) has had solo exhibitions in galleries internationally as well as at the MOCA, Los Angeles and Foundation Morra Greco, Naples, Italy. In 2015, he will have a large-scale exhibition at 365 Mission Road in Los Angeles. Among others, Wesley’s work has been included in exhibitions at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Musée d’Art Contemporain, Bordeaux; Fundación/Colección, Jumex, Mexico; Museo d’Arte, Benevento, Italy; the 2004 Whitney Biennial; The Prague Biennial; Institute of Contemporary Art, London; MoMA P.S.1, New York; and the Studio Museum in Harlem. He is one of the founders of Los Angeles’ Mountain School of Arts.” – Bortolami