Steve Turner is pleased to present Midday Demon, a solo exhibition of new paintings by London-based Francisco Rodriguez, most of which feature an isolated male figure within a desolate urban landscape. In some, the figure is upright and smoking a cigarette. In others, he appears to have passed out. The artist describes the bleak setting as one that fosters exhaustion, listlessness, sadness, dejection, restlessness, anxiety and depression. Rodriguez observed the phenomena of the “midday demon” while growing up in Santiago, one of the largest cities in South America; again in London where he has lived for the last five years; and also during a recent residencies in Poland and Ukraine. He ponders the effects of the oppressive midday sun and wonders if such “spirits” actually do appear at that hour. Are his figures victims of some  “midday demon”; or are they the demons themselves? Francisco Rodriguez (b. 1989, Santiago) earned a BFA and a post-graduate degree in painting at the University of Chile, Santiago (2012 &; 2013) before earning an MFA at the Slade School of Fine Art, London (2018). He has had recent solo exhibitions at Galeria Leyendecker, Santa Cruz de Tenerife (2018) and Cooke Latham, London (2018). This is Rodriguez’ first solo exhibition at Steve Turner. ———— ———— ———— Steve Turner is pleased to present The Creators, a solo exhibition by Rebecca Shippee featuring four portraits that are scaled to life and painted from observation. Her subjects are visibly queer, their bodies altered medically or through wardrobe choices. One figure bears top-surgery scars and whimsical tattoos, while another wears emerald green silk pajamas and a nameplate reading Boyland. The show’s title refers to self-fashioning, the art of inventing oneself, a pursuit particularly vital to queer life as well as to the fact that all the sitters are cultural creators—artists, writers and activists. In choosing to portray individuals with whom she has close personal relationships, Shippee rejects the traditional notions of “active artist” and “passive muse.” Instead, she portrays the sitters as creators of their own images.  Rebecca Shippee (b. 1991, Troy, New York) attended Bard College at Simon’s Rock, Great Barrington, Massachusetts (2010); earned a BFA at Purchase College, State University of New York (2013) and attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2018) before enrolling in the MFA program at Yale University where she is expected to graduate in 2020. She has presented work in numerous group exhibitions since 2012 and this is her first solo exhibition with Steve Turner. Shippee lives and works in New Haven. ———— ———— ———— Steve Turner is pleased to present Violet Alabama, a solo exhibition by Jon Key that consists of paintings inspired by the artist’s personal history and memories of growing up in rural Seale, Alabama. Through self-portraiture, Key explores the lineage and history of his identity through four themes—southern-ness, blackness, queerness, and family—each of which he represents chromatically with green, black, violet and red. He will also exhibit portraits of his father and grandfather to highlight the friction between the generations and the challenges of being a queer Black man in the Deep South. Jon Key (b. 1990, Seale, Alabama) received a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design (2013). He has had solo exhibitions at Spring Break, New York (2019) and the Rubber Factory, New York (2019). His work has also been featured in group exhibitions at Jeffrey Dietch, New York and The Hole, New York. Key is also co-founder of Codify Art, a Brooklyn-based queer and trans people of color artist collective. He lives and works in Brooklyn and this is his first exhibition at Steve Turner, Los Angeles.