Using imagery from an array of sources, most crucially his own photographs, Ian Stanton makes paintings that prioritize distortion, obfuscation, reiteration, and improvisation as strategies to engage with the concepts of mnemonic life and the forces of cultural disavowal. Stanton gravitates towards subjects that evade immediate legibility, flirt with narrative impulse, and reflect a loss of agency within the realm of observation. This growing list of subjects includes indexed jewelry, Solingen butter knives, a cultural artifact from the Louvre, baby’s breath flowers, suspended cloud formations, and a variety of unidentifiable figures that turn away from their viewers.

Working in an intentionally limited palette, Stanton’s paintings are primarily monochrome. Some paintings feature unadulterated blacks and whites, while others embrace warm or cool undertones, a spectrum of pulsating chromatic grays, or inexplicably variegated color. This ever-looming threat of color is informed by the artist’s lifelong suspicion of color as a signifier of beauty alongside his colorblindness.

Stanton (b. 1989, Hong Kong) earned his BA in fine arts and philosophy from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, CA. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at venues including OCHI, Roberts Projects, Actual Size, in lieu, Dread Lounge, and Human Resources in Los Angeles, CA; Rice University and Johnathan Hopson Gallery in Houston, TX; Darger HQ in Omaha, NE; 99 Suffolk in New York, NY; and Wieden+Kennedy in Tokyo, Japan. Stanton currently lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.