243 Luz is proud to open the debut UK solo exhibition of New York based artist Kevin Lowenthal. 

In Kevin Lowenthal’s artistic cosmos, reality is habitually deconstructed and reconstructed by way of tight interiors and selective portraiture. His pictorial situations often involve windows, which merely reproduce what is contained within the focus area. Curtains are also recurrent throughout, breaking up space like architecture, while still referring back to the body. Whether consigned to theaters or domestic settings, Lowenthal’s nebulous zones are unfettered by excessive visual accouterments. Instead, mind is paid to textual idiosyncrasies, creating a sense of thing-ness before paint is ever applied. This remarkable surface quality results from an exacted accumulation of cotton on linen, followed up with oil paint that oozes into and bonds with the fibrous layers.

Painting’s illusory mode is the basis from which Lowenthal produces his images. In Anywhere can be Paradise, one sees the scope of the artist’s interests collapsed in a single imaginal frame. A chair made of paint is a chair nonetheless, its format merely consigned to a picture. This painting is a prime example of Lowenthal’s productive attitude, as color and representational status breed illusory mazes that fold into themselves.

Some of the fractured image planes refer back to Clyfford Still’s abstractions, while their holistic strategies are strongly intertwined with Florine Stettheimer’s ecstatic modernism. The interplay between vibrant colors and theatrical settings easily align with Stettheimer’s invocations of 20th century America, though her rococo flair is in stark contrast with Lowenthal’s geometric-leaning formalism. He instead confronts the notion of realism, as it can also manifest in abstraction just as effectively as in representational forms.

Returning to the matter of content, Lowenthal’s images are rational vortexes that tip between infinitudes and architectures. Their palpable cinematic tilt is by design, taking note from practitioners of the science fiction genre like Brandon Cronenberg, whose film Possessor offers both inspired architectures and psychological minefields. David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire are also vertices upon which Lowenthal draws from. The director’s particularities are grounded in color, drama, and mood, which the painter borrows from in pursuit of his distinct mode. Lowenthal maintains a foothold in the tangible, implementing surreal principles as he sees fit. 
-    Reilly Davidson 

Kevin Lowenthal (b. Philadelphia, 1994) lives and works in NYC. Selected group exhibitions include: Brigette Mulholland: Le Vernissage(2024), Anton Kern Gallery: Friends & Family(2023), Spring Break: The Sky Opened and it was so Inviting(2023), Drama Gallery: War(2023), Basic Mountain: Wish You Well(2017), Textilmiðstöð Íslands: Buttered(2016), Ice Box Project Space: Live/Work(2016).