2016 Sequencer-Spectrum-Reverb

Solo Exhibition @ Luis De Jesus Gallery, Sept 2016 in Los Angeles

...A techno music festival, surrounded by pulsing music and flashing strobe lights. Piper is trying to figure out who the guy running by in front of her is and suddenly realizes it's Dax, from Berlin. He's the producer of the show and he's with that girl from Iceland, Svava. Why is he hanging out with her?

Transposing the idea of surround sound to the visual realm, Beaucage's new paintings introduce us to a music production crew: American, British, and German electronic musicians and producers, along with ravers, party goers, and vap smokers. The exhibition consists of portraits on paper -- head and shoulders shots and figures in landscapes. Are these presumed impostors, pseudo portraits or counterfeit eccentrics?

Beaucage's loosely painted characters straddle representation and abstraction and oscillate between sincerity and parody. Specks, drips and drops of paint animate hoodies, long coats, eyes, hair and moustaches. Large expressive brushstrokes aroused by carbon black and phtalo turquoise energize the atmosphere. Although the work appears lighthearted it has a foothold in critical approach and philosophy. The characters function as shorthand for a range of philosophical concepts that undergird her strategies: "being with" (Heidegger's mitsein), "presence" and "trace" (Derrida), and "empathy" (Titchener's einfühlung). They are quite congenial and approachable -- if they where real; they're "ultrasocial" (Haidt) and totally free.