Circus Gallery is pleased to present the new work by Los Angeles-based artist Jason Starr. For this exhibition, Starr confronts the vulnerability of his intentions with the responsibility of their effect, having manifested in baby-like canvases painted in oil.

Starr produced the babies in what came to be an expression of his own exuberance, willingness and desire to make and simultaneously his immediate sense of participating, as an artist and a person, always dependant on a context and a community. The process of making becomes inseparable from the anticipation of presenting his brood, doubling the force of his commitment and his anxiety, in an attempt to be accountable for the language his actions produce.

“ ‘Doc, I’ve got butterflies.’
My immediate response is, “Great!”

I say that because I don’t think butterflies, or nervous tension, that sense in your stomach that you’re in uncharted waters, are to be feared. I think they’re to be welcomed. You don’t get butterflies on the Saturday night if you’re in 62nd place and the only thing at stake on Sunday is the few thousand extra dollars they’d pay you if you shot 66 and moved up to 43rd. You get butterflies when you put yourself in position to realize a dream.

Butterflies, when you think about it, are among Nature’s most beautiful creations. When they approach a flower, the flower opens itself up to them. They’re integral to the process of pollination.

Like the flower, golfers welcome the butterflies. They recognize that butterflies are a sign that their hard work is paying off, that they’re in the position they’ve wanted to be in. They recognize that they had to be playing well just to get there.”

—Dr. Bob Rotella, The Golfer’s Mind

Jason Starr was born in Los Angeles in 1975. He received an MFA from USC in 2007 and a BFA from California Institute of the Arts in 2005. He has shown his work internationally in Germany, Denmark, and Sweden. Locally his work has been shown at China Art Objects, The Roy and Edna Disney Theater, and High Energy Constructs.