Wes Lang exhibiting “Healing Of A Nation” at One Trick Pony, a new gallery founded by Arty Nelson. The gallery is located in the Fairfax district of Los Angeles at 1051 S Fairfax Ave. and will be on view from May 15 - June 12th, 2021.
Sitting on the brink of oblivion last summer, artist Wes Lang sat in LA's Bronson Canyon, looking out over the city, listening to the chemical swarm of ‘copters as they circled overhead. Needless to say, shit was ominous. Bodies were piling up. Tensions were mounting. America was teetering on the precipice of something horrible—a cultural chasm that was looking more and more like a prelude to civil war. In Los Angeles, the hopelessness was so thick, it felt like a tidal wave barreling up over the sand, surging until it topped off at the crest of the Santa Monica Mountains. The cumulative effect had us all staggering through the streets wondering how much longer and how much worse this volcano of sadness would be.
For Lang, the antidote funneled down through his head and heart and dripped off his hand. A series of twelve works on paper, incorporating some of his most tried and true iconic images, ride alongside a new and expanded arsenal of figures that look as if they were harvested out of some lost lo-fi science fiction. A clash of tribes, warring afterlife gladiators, skeleton horses, skull piles dripping blood, ghoulish hands cupping a perfect bird, axe-wielding satyr assassins, a rainbow winged vampire, violet hooded reapers, all preparing for the looming bloodbath. Only this time, the whisper of doom enveloping the mise-en-scène is offset by cryptic verbal offerings, providing a ballast of hope and instructions for a new beginning. The crowning glory of Lang's newest body of work being a 6' x 7' text-based mandala; a sprawling work on paper executed in a single seismic blast on the eve of last fall's election, offering myriad paths toward healing. Imagine a kind of cosmic prayer rug, peppered with words that explode across the surface like confetti, a supernova of dots and lines all emanating from the center in celebration of what might come next if we search and destroy division, abandon resentment and forge alliances towards a better day as we barrel into the summer of 2021.