Chaotic, unruly, overwhelming, beautiful. Los Angeles-based artist Elliott Hundley’s collaged work envelops the space it occupies, pulling viewers into an immersive world of memory and storytelling.
Elliott softens the boundaries between art and life by taking up residence in his Chinatown studio, which is overflowing with teetering piles of ephemera, collage fodder, and half-used tubes of paint. His energetic studio practice, surrounded by the sights and sounds of Chinatown, inspired the structure for his current solo exhibition at LA’s Regen Projects, Echo. Elliott’s sixth show at the gallery transforms the space into an immense, life-sized collage composed of ceramics, paintings, assemblages, photographs, works on paper, and both freestanding and hanging sculptures. The work on display showcases the depth and breadth of his work from the last 20 years.
Inserted among the symbols, icons, and forms, hand-picked oddities from Elliott’s personal collection add an intimate touch to an overwhelming cloud of cultural detritus. Seeing Echo as an ongoing work in a perpetual state of becoming, Elliott fully embraces a “more is more” aesthetic. Built on layer after layer of paint, paper, and found objects, Echo captures the excesses and fast pace of living in modern society with reckless abandon.
The show also marks the LA debut of Elliott’s “Balcony,” a large-scale landscape collage that made its first appearance at citywide art exhibition Prospect New Orleans in 2021. Inspired by French dramatist Jean Genet’s 1956 satire, The Balcony, Elliott’s work reenacts a moment from the play where the boundary between reality and fantasy falls away.
Echo is on display at Regen Projects through February 19, 2023. For more information, please visit the gallery’s website here.
Seeing Echo as an ongoing work in a perpetual state of becoming, Elliott fully embraces a “more is more” aesthetic.
Elliott Hundley: Instagram
All photos published with permission of the artist(s); images (c) Elliott Hundley, courtesy of Regen Projects.
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