GGLA is proud to present Incense, a solo exhibition by Los Angeles based artist Chris Lux opening Friday, October 13th with a reception from 6–9PM. In new canvases, Lux builds a saturated world that feels both enveloping in its strange unfamiliarity and deeply rooted in art history. With a suite of paintings realized in ultra-flat Flashe vinyl paint, Lux crafts a loose narrative of interlocking human and frog protagonists in a dance of cooperation, adoration and conflict, speaking to our complex and fraught relationship with the natural world. Within human history and popular culture, frogs represent everything from fertility to liaisons of the underworld. The Egyptians worshiped the frog-goddess Heqet who was associated with the Nile’s flooding and thereby the bringing of new life and abundance. The Bible depicted frogs as a source of punishment as the second of ten plagues levied against the Pharaoh and his people. Through medieval times the frog became associated with witchcraft and potion making, and more modern fairytales feature princes and kings turned into frogs only to be transfigured back into human form through an act of love. Lux’s works embrace the frog in all its rich symbolic history, yet the paintings within Incense don’t feel as if they’re inherently tied to any strict narrative structure, just as they feel connected but not indebted to art history. Instead, Lux’s handling of rich color, loose form and beautiful figuration presents a tapestry of interactions between human characters and frogs, painting a series of relationships that at times feel symbiotic and at others violent and antagonistic.