Steve Turner is pleased to present American Gothic, a solo exhibition featuring new works by Dublin-based Jingze Du that relate to American popular culture and celebrity as perceived by Du, someone who spent the first thirteen years of his life in Yantai, China and most of the next fourteen in Dublin, Ireland. Du’s vantage point is an interesting one, for though he has yet to visit the United States, he has intensely admired its culture from afar and has made it a subject in his work for the last five years. At the exhibition’s core are three pairs of delicately rendered paintings in thinned down oil in shades of black, gray and white. There are two larger than life-size portraits of visual artists, one of Jeff Koons and the other of Sterling Ruby; one of basketball legend LeBron James in action and another of two courtside NBA fans; and finally there is Du’s pared down version of Grant Wood’s American Gothic and one of a great white shark, tellingly titled Jaws. The pairs have their own interesting frisson and all of the individual works have some interesting dialogue with the others. Koons and Ruby are the yin and yang of American contemporary artists, one shiny and bright, the other dark and foreboding; LeBron is the embodiment of the American Dream; The shark is the face of American capitalism; Grant Wood’s painting is the ultimate American painting; and the courtside fans are the audience to it all. Jingze Du (born 1995, Yantai, China) moved to Dublin when he was thirteen years old. He later earned his BA at the National College of Art & Design, Dublin (2017) and his MA from the Royal College of Art, London (2019). He has had solo exhibitions at Sifang Museum, Shanghai (2022); Steve Turner, Los Angeles (May & October, 2020 & 2021) and Hive Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2021). This is his fourth solo exhibition at Steve Turner. __ Steve Turner is pleased to present Some things last a long time, the debut solo exhibition for Santiago-born and Berlin-based Pablo Benzo. The exhibition will feature a group of new paintings that are inspired by imagination, dream, design and nature. The paintings have a tropical island feeling as though they depict blue skies and oceans, fiery sunsets, green hills and exotic plants, fruits and flowers. Yet there are no such scenes. Benzo mostly creates exotic interior scenes that contain windows to the outer world. The juxtapositions combine biomorphic forms and rectilinear geometry which enable the viewer to inhabit an exotic installation of art and design. Pedestals and table tops hold a single black shoe, an oversized pear, a radiantly yellow lemon, an undulating vase or an exotic lamp or flower. Delicately painted contrasting gradients of color fill the paintings, and though there are no human figures, table legs with refined feet convey movement and life. The scenes are imagined and emotional, rhythmic and musical. According to Benzo,”I hope to emulate the experience of looking at a river from a fixed point. While you observe the same scene, the flowing water is always different.” Pablo Benzo (born Santiago, 1982) earned a degree in Graphic Design at University of Chile, 2009 before soon relocating to Berlin where he still resides. In recent years, his work has been included in numerous group exhibitions as well as solo exhibitions at BC Gallery, Basel (2021); Dio Horia, Mykonos (2021); Gallery Animal, Santiago (2018 & 2020). This is Benzo’s first exhibition with Steve Turner. __ Steve Turner is pleased to present La montaña más cercana, a solo exhibition featuring new paintings by Valencia-based Marina Iglesias. The exhibition is inspired by the idea of visiting ‘the closest mountain’, an experience that Iglesias compares to painting, something that nourishes but also challenges. The paintings are based on folklore, medieval and Renaissance painting, myth, tarot and ancient scientific illustration. Familiar and invented imagery are intermingled. Verdant landscapes, animals, flowers and trees provide the setting for strange, biomorphic fountains and silent female characters. Marina Iglesias (born in 1991, Puerto Real, Cádiz, Spain) earned a BA in Fine Arts and an MA in Artistic Production at the Universitat Politècnica de València. She had a solo exhibition at Tuesday to Friday Gallery, Valencia (2021) and had her work included in group exhibitions at Eligere Gallery, Seoul and Kiaf, Seoul (2022). This is her first exhibition at Steve Turner.