Evan Gruzis: Dark Systems

Evan Gruzis’ deceptively photographic-seeming ink paintings feature palm trees, digital clocks, 1980s graphic-design tropes, ghosts and strange texts, channeling a certain Hollywood Hills malaise via Ed Ruscha. With the sardonic wit of Brett Easton Ellis and a unique ink manipulation technique that keeps viewers guessing, Gruzis’ work continues to haunt, like a half-remembered name or an almost-tangible word: what you see is often only half-there, or sometimes mockingly not there at all. This first monograph is published in conjunction with the artist’s first solo exhibition in New York–held at Deitch Projects in December 2008. In it, more than 60 of Gruzis’ complex ink paintings are reproduced, prefaced by an introduction by former Museum of Modern Art, New York, curator Joachim Pissarro. Evan Gruzis was born in Milwaukee in 1979. Having lived in Los Angeles, he now lives and works in New York.