Kim Light/Light Box is pleased to present “Good Leaders, Endangered Species, Ships at Sea”, an installation of new paintings by Keith Mayerson. Juxtaposed in a deliberate sequence to create a poetic allegory of images, oil paintings of iconic figures from popular and political cultural history are exhibited along with images of animals that are truly endangered in our fragile ecology, next to pictures of vessels striving to overcome seemingly insurmountable storms, symbolizing an optimistic outlook that we can healthily triumph through the chaotic crises of our time.  

In “Drum Majors”, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Mrs. Coretta Scott King play the piano with two of their children, representing how the family inspired new generations of leaders who invoke them as their models in a painting titled after his last famous speech. “Oak Canopy” reminds us of the threatened wilderness of California and Earth. In “Dune” Paul Atriedies and his Fremen comrade are painted to represent the brotherhood of two different cultures fighting for the rights of people and the planet, from the science fiction story that has prescient relevance to our current conflicts in the Middle East. One of the most influential entertainers of the 20th century, Judy Garland appears in “I Don’t Care”, defiantly dancing during her performance of a powerful, pre-feminist tune of the same title. In a painting of Elvis seen on a photo through a window that also reflects a street near the Anne Frank house,  “Elvis in Amsterdam” shows simultaneously someone who changed music history and one of the most progressive societies of the western world. “Tommy Kirk as David” depicts the famous child actor of the ‘50’s, fired by Disney for being gay, but now living as an out and proud successful businessman.  Shirley Temple makes an appearance from the film “The Little Princess” as she dreams herself to be a benevolent leader as her character in the film makes a valiant struggle to overcome hardship. “Whale Ascending” is a painting of a triumphant Humpback exhibited next to “Rogue Wave and the Stolt Surf”, an oil tanker challenged by a gigantic wall of water. A baby giant panda is painted larger than life, and is displayed next to “Karmapa”, a leader of Tibetan Buddhism shown scarred but relieved, immediately after his courageous escape from Tibet and into India.  A picture of a tiger is entitled “Tyger”, to evoke not just the few individuals left in the wild, but the famous Blake poem from “The Songs of Experience”. A Black Rhino is in the next painting charging after it has suffered wounds.  Finally the Clipper Ship  “Comet” is appropriated from a Currier and Ives print, depicting a famous boat fighting a perilous storm to become the fastest vessel of its day.

Influenced both by modernist and post-modern sensibilities, Keith Mayerson aspires to make paintings that have the warmth and emotion that resides in formally dynamic work of the past, combined with the content-rich and politically aware art of the last sixty years.  Both in form and content, each individual painting has allegorical ideas and themes imbedded in synaesthetic, consciously (and subconsciously) derived paintings that ultimately hope to transcend any literal language or meaning.

Keith Mayerson has exhibited in galleries and museums for over fifteen years in North America and Europe.  He lives in Manhattan, where is teaches fine art and contemporary art theory at New York University and is an instructor and Cartooning Coordinator at the School of Visual Arts.  His work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Cleveland Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.