Pawnshop presents the debut solo exhibition of Los Angeles based artist, Justin Hansch.

For this exhibition, Hansch estimates the validity of his observations on a set of facts in order to set forth evidence about the whole. More than process or material, language is the culprit of the tensions between depicted reality and the actuality of painting. Like being stuck in the fog without any reference points, the sum of Hansch’s equation ultimately leads back to the particulars without solution; the painting is a rumination on the fallacy that there exists a representation for which the answer is immediately obvious.

Though his paintings and sculptures imbue the pleasure with which they appear to be made, it is difficult to deny the solipsistic universe from whence they came and the enormous individual survival value of their presence. Hansch’s works seem to feed off the counter-intuitive while revealing it for what it is, simultaneously capturing the isomorphic similarity between the two. Whether his intention be to mark the realm of his personal environment, or to re-imagine the communal, the choice of what to make is inextricably linked to the questions: how -and with whom- to make it?

Justin Hansch is founder and director of JMOCA (Justin’s Museum of Contemporary Art), a museum located in his Los Angeles home. His work has been included in a group shows at CoLab in Copenhagen and Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien in Berlin. Most recently, he was a part of a two-person show at China Art Objects in Los Angeles. He holds a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.