Exhibitions

JOE DEVERA: PAPER TIGER

COOP Gallery / 507 Hagan St April 15, 2021 - April 25, 2021

Joe deVera

COOP is elated to present Paper Tiger, an exhibition of new and recent paintings made by California-based artist Joe deVera. Formerly enlisted in the United States Marine Corps, serving two combat deployments, his work attempts to make sense of the absurd theaters of human tragedy by way of making, as if somehow, the inherent anachronism of art objects are enough to correct the discrepancies of our current historiography. Often his work can be viewed as an aggregate of weaponized material as well as a marshaled victim of the military complex. The works themselves, which range from paintings amalgamated from various sources, to shambling fabricated archetypes of familiar structures or figures, are constructed with a combination of repurposed military equipment, domestic household items and discarded construction material gathered from local sites. It is within these disparate processes that his work creates a transitional element in which to employ our ability to visually access human events at various levels simultaneously. Perhaps these art objects would also serve as a conduit between human experiences, interacting within systems of retrospection, myth, and metaphor. It is within these contingencies that deVera’s work traces the potential to not only amend how we represent and contextualize the world and events around us, past and present but also create new dialogues to build upon its understanding.

Images:
Paper Tiger
Oil on canvas
8 ft x 4.5 ft