“Richard Kurtz: The 1040 & Other Works”, our inaugural show and the artist’s first exhibition in LA. The event will take place at Tears of Venus, 7527 W Sunset Blvd Los Angeles, CA. Opening receptions, Friday, September 13th, 6 - 9 pm and Saturday, September 14th, 6 - 9 pm, and runs till November 10th

The exhibition showcases artwork by Kurtz spanning his prolific 40+ year career and includes paintings on stretched canvas and board, mixed media artworks, works on paper, one-of-a-kind artist's books, and painted vintage dictionaries containing 1000+ individual paintings. Together, these artworks weave the story of the artist’s life by creating a unique “library”, and invite the curious to step beyond the role of gallery viewer/voyeur and enter and engage with Kurtz’s world and mythology.

The exhibition’s centerpiece is “The 1040”, an installation of 1,040 individual miniature mixed-media paintings created on post-consumer expired credit cards, gift cards, and hotel key cards. Unified as one large-scale work, the tidal wave of imagery is composed of themes that echo throughout his work and tell his life story; Resilience, Survival, Magic, Repetition, and Transmutation. In 2008, Kurtz was forced to turn away from creating larger work when he lost his housing and faced displacement. He painted on small credit cards and found objects, which were more practical, portable, and less costly than traditional canvas. The small works became his calling card, and like a run of baseball cards, Kurtz created, sold, and traded the small paintings for years. The cards made their way around the world, forming a legacy beyond the artist. Even after Kurtz’s circumstances changed, he continued painting on credit cards and over time amassed a prolific amount of these paintings. Small-scale on their own, each card measures around 3.375” x 2.125”. The impressive installation of 1,040 paintings hangs at 87.75” x 85” or approximately 7’ x 7’.

Kurtz’s relationship to storytelling and text is notable and the combined use of image and text appears throughout his work. Kurtz employs methods like the “cut-up technique”, collage, and “blackout poetry” which story the artworks non-linearly, like pages ripped from a book. He paints in vintage Golden Books and dictionaries, layering his characters and text on top of the original illustrations. For the artist, this type of painting is more than changing the story; it’s an alchemical attempt to shift reality and shift power structures. Including text as a part of his storytelling also acts as a doorway for the viewer to enter the piece beyond the visuals - it invites people to explore their inner worlds and create portals to new realities, dimensions, and possibilities.

Kurtz paints prize fighters, superheroes, seductresses, and other-worldly beings, archetypal characters that build his visual world and help him explore themes of power and power dynamics. Many of the heroes in his stories are survivors of a brutal and unforgiving culture of hierarchy, violence, and economic inequality. Kurtz paints these figures obsessively and in the repetitive action, patterns emerge. The resulting lines and forms can be seen as essential mark-making. This repetition is one of the defining components of his work, a compulsive act and meditation.

Richard Kurtz (b. 1955 in Newark, NJ) is a self-taught painter and mixed media artist whose work is featured in the private collections of Sophie Calle, Lester Marks, Audrey Heckler, and Monty Blanchard. Kurtz’s work is housed in institutions like the de Young Museum, The Museum of Everything in London, and The University of Miami Rare Book Collection. He currently lives in Los Angeles.