I’ve written a lot about Los Angeles and how it’s mistakenly known as an “ugly city.” And while before I’ve been willing to blame that mistake on biased reporting, I’m starting to believe that the call is coming from inside the house. Truthfully, we have only ourselves to blame for our city’s image problem. And it’s more than just the labels we self-ascribe. It’s the images and impressions that have become iconic to Los Angeles. The palm trees and deserts, the waves and sunsets – we supplant the city that we built with the nature that we conquered. These natural icons act as the subjects for the incisive paintings from Jason Mason in his show, “California Rhythm,” on view at Bill Brady Gallery.

I was first struck by Mason’s work when I immersed myself in the details. Mason possesses an immense technical ability; from the gentle gradations of color in waves of water or sand, to the hyper- realistic palm tree on a millennial pink backdrop, he shows himself to be an outstanding painter. He renders the symbols of southern California with an exacting and fine eye.

But the power of his works is not built on technical mastery alone, nor on a sentimental awareness of our cities iconography. Rather, Mason injects into his natural images telltale signs of humanity: like trash floating in the sea or construction equipment. Mason goads the viewer into recognizing the identity of their city not only in the natural beauty but also in our human intervention. These suggestions of humanity highlight the dichotomy of a city like Los Angeles, and the difficulty of aligning a city with natural symbols.

These ideas come to the forefront with the works which introduce textual elements. Cloak and Dagger (2021), for example, takes the classic palm tree vignettes and flips them by transforming them into cell towers. The text (“Cloak and Dagger” written across the canvas) illustrates the thin veneer of Los Angeles’ identity. We want to put forward this front of splendor and iconic nature, but at our core we are a city of wires and towers.

The “California Rhythm” is a syncopated one; it upends our traditional understanding of our city and its iconography, but still ends up with a beautiful melody.

Bill Brady Gallery
603 N. La Brea Ave.
Los Angeles, California 90036
Thru Oct. 16th, 2021