Jason Villegas | Cosmic Series

A few years ago Jason Villegas was obsessed with the PlayStation 2 video game “Katamari Damacy” which is where I believe the following works on paper find their origin.  I was introduced to Jason’s work about 18 months ago and had a somewhat passive interest.  However, after seeing the works in person and visiting with him about a year ago I became a fan.  Jason a young Houston artist has an extensive exhibition history including a solo exhibition at the Contemporary Art Museum Houston.  This series is somewhat new to me. I appreciate Jason taking the time to send a bunch of photos over the weekend.  The cosmic series are usually wall installations and video works.   Find time to look up this important artist and hopefully you will become a fan like I did.

For my friends in the Dallas area Jason is included in a group exhibition at Liliana Bloch Gallery that opens this Saturday, November 23rd.

 

The works below range in size from 8x8 inches up to 25x35 inches.

 

Here are some of those wall installations

 

Artist Statement from Jason's website.

My work expresses human desire through naïve representations of man, animal, machine, microbiology, cosmology and merchandise. I subvert fashion logos, animals, nudes, and weaponry to create humorous and absurd engagements, which mirror societal conditioning. This primordial sea of frenetic mutation and unrelenting consumption, pits the images and icons of high and low consumer cultures in the same ring. My drawings, painting, sculpture, video and installation simultaneously explore the grand social schema as well as sub-cultural sexual and artistic realms. Reconstructed clothing, cardboard, found objects, and fragments from our throw away society, meld to create site-specific configurations. These environments formulate an unpolished and coarsely made tribute to global capitalism and progress.