James Fuentes Gallery

James Fuentes is thrilled to present Sebastian Silva, Imaginary Friends in Los Angeles, the artist’s first exhibition with the gallery.

Sebastian Silva’s paintings are defined by a series of cartoon characteristics, deconstructed. As if detached from the outline of a comic book figure, a medium-weight line buzzes and multiplies through the middle ground of each composition. Ribbons of primary color follow in hot pursuit, gathering against a dirty off-white ground like the exploded guts of a comic book page. These are abstractions of abstractions; a double-negative leaving behind suggestions of an eye, a dog ear, a dragon, a limb.

In parallel to Silva’s larger-scale abstract canvases, Imaginary Friends is bisected by a parallel group of figurative works populated by expressive cartoon animals in various states of embrace and exploration. Just as the abstractions could be read as aerial-view long exposures of their frenetic activity, these figures seem to clarify the subliminal impressions found in the larger works. In terms of process, there is very little difference between the two: after laying down a first mark, Silva will pause to establish the composition that’ll emerge from it. The gesture, more psychedelic than automatic, becomes a solid construct.

While celebrated for his practices in painting and filmmaking, Silva has been drawing the longest. In boyhood he put medium to paper and cartoon figures emerged first. Inspired by the animated languages of artists like Matt Groening, John Kricfalusi, and Tex Avery, he soon developed as an irreverent colorist as well. In time, Silva’s visual language continually dissolves and reconfigures; the figure breaks into abstraction, then resolves back into figuration. These early inspirations, as well as their visual conventions, might be those “imaginary friends” in question. So too are the images we encounter here—promising to disappear, as soon as they may reemerge.

Sebastian Silva (b. 1979, Santiago de Chile, Chile) lives and works in Los Angeles. Recent solo exhibitions include Ivanhoe at BLUM, Los Angeles (2024); My Party at OMR, Mexico City (2023); The Elephant in the Room at Bodega OMR, Mexico City (2021); and Look, Mom! at David Castillo Gallery, Miami (2011). Group exhibitions include Ritual Being at Ryan Lee Gallery, New York (2022) and Salón, LagoAlgo, Mexico City (2022). He lives and works in Los Angeles.