Charlie James Gallery Announces Representation of Kristopher Raos

Kristopher Raos in his studio. Photo: Yubo Dong / ofstudio

Charlie James Gallery is delighted to announce the representation of Kristopher Raos

Kristopher Raos adopts the aesthetics of advertising, exploiting the bold color and pop fonts of packaging for their formal possibilities and real-world associations, abstracting via adept cropping and clever manipulations. Executed in deft, precision brushwork at a scale that mirrors that of old-fashioned detergent boxes, the works exist in the sweet spot between surface and object. Raos manifests the formal energy usually associated with much larger works; they seem to extend beyond the borders of the canvas.

The labor of painting and the labor of daily life are here intricately connected. Raos recaptures time spent performing household tasks as a kind of aesthetic research, transforming the stuff of the world into fodder for the studio. It is an act of both recognition and elevation: a recognition of the abstract potential of midcentury commercial art, and an elevation of that material into something more. The results are a kind of Pop-inflected minimalism – hard edge by way of the corner drugstore.

Kristopher Raos [ b. 1987 • Bakersfield,CA ] is a self-taught painter living and working in Los Angeles, CA. He illustrates his interest in Humor, precise (DIY) techniques, and attention to craft through an expansive range of visual languages - large and small scale paintings, sculpture, and drawings. He has had solo exhibitions at Charlie James Gallery, As-is Gallery and MaRs Gallery and has exhibited in group exhibitions at Venus Over Manhattan, Chris Sharp Gallery, Torrance Art Museum, Peripheral Space, RDFA, and Keystone Art Space.

Raos had his first solo show with Charlie James Gallery in June 2022 and is currently exhibiting in the group show Rostro, on view through August 27 at the gallery.