LOS ANGELES, CA.- Wilding Cran Gallery is presenting A Day In The Life, a curatorial assemblage of the memories and everyday influences of emerging artist, Jonah Elijah.
In an effort to capture the essence of life in his hometown of Houston, Texas, Jonah Elijah invites the viewer to take a walk in his shoes, harnessing everything from oil paint and pastel, to newsprint and found objects. Through an odyssey punctuated by snapshots of street scenes and basketball courts, shopping carts and sneakers, A Day In The Life introduces the viewer to a series of vignettes that guide us through the experience of a young black man growing up in America.
Throughout his practice, the now Los Angeles-based artist utilizes representational and abstract approaches to painting in order to isolate and examine the impact of certain images, objects, and rituals that came to characterize his adolescence. At once thoughtfully methodical and implicitly organic, Elijah revisits the sites of his memories by experimenting with point of view. Through an aesthetic commentary on the ways in which we are able to re-evaluate our modes of perception, the artist questions the significance of where we stand in relation to our memories, to one another, to animals and insects, to telephone poles and mountaintops.
Whether witnessing a bird’s eye view of a neighborhood dice game or observing the world from beneath the soles of a pair of Jordans, A Day In The Life pieces together the puzzle of memory to examine the pathways though which we learn to navigate the world. By holding a microscope up to his own iconography, Jonah Elijah draws the viewer into an intimate autobiographical journey that sheds light on the experiences that shape us as individuals and the ties that come to bind a community.
This is Elijah's first time exhibiting with Wilding Cran Gallery.
Jonah Elijah received his BA in Studio Art from the University of Texas at San Antonio, 2017. Since receiving his MFA from Claremont Graduate University in 2020, his studio practice has progressed through residencies, such as Virginia Center for Creative Arts (VCCA) where he created his Virginia series, works on paper that respond to the center’s historical land in the foothills of Blueridge Mountains, Amherst, VA, which are simultaneously focused on Black exploitation and Black liberation. His most recent residency was based in Queens, NY at Deli Grocery, followed by his first solo exhibition with the gallery titled ABOVE BELOW CENTER (ABC), featuring works focused on highlighting dimensions of everyday Black life. Elijah continues to push his work forward with guest artist lectures at institutions such as Western Michigan University, Hood College and Claremont Graduate University. Like the narrative of his work, Elijah is ever evolving.
