For his latest solo exhibition at Jeffrey Deitch, Alfonso Gonzalez Jr. is bringing a slice of Los Angeles to the East Coast. Through a suite of street and signage paintings, This Was Here presents a still-life tribute to the city’s people and places, animated by the artist’s tender appreciation for his hometown.
Constructed from photographs and memories, Gonzalez’s paintings do not feature people yet they resonate with a palpable sense of humanity. Amidst a network of sprawling highways and traffic jams, he brings focus to the wide grins of insurance brokers and accidents lawyers on billboards and posters. Where one might see a broken car on the side of the road, the artist searches for the owner that abandoned it.
Gonzalez’s first foray into painting was not on canvas, but on the walls and windows of LA. It was under the training of his father, a professional sign painter, that he picked up the technical skills and the steadfast work ethic that would come to define his practice. Rooted in his upbringing and the shifting landscape of his city, the exhibition spotlights the unique visual iconography of working-class neighborhoods and its survival in the face of rapid development.
“I approach this work not as an outsider, but as a resident and active participant in the craft and subculture,” the artist notes in a recent statement. “My history informs my approach to investigating the mark-making and layers created by the community that shape a city’s appearance. The aim is to capture and document a moment in time, marked by unprecedented and drastic change.”
This Was Here will be on view in New York through January 18, 2025
Jeffrey Deitch New York
18 Wooster Street,
New York, NY 10013
