Los Angeles is often looked down upon for its superficiality. But, the artist Zoe Walsh sees the city’s signature trait as favorable. After graduating with an MFA from Yale University, Walsh returned to LA, where they had pursued their undergraduate degree some years earlier. For them, this superficiality translates into an inherent relationship to the unnatural that provides a solid foundation from which to explore gender and sexuality. With a labor-intensive artistic process and as an attempt to create trans subjectivity, Walsh transforms film stills and photographs to abstract painting. Preoccupied by LA’s unique light and gender performances, their most recent series of acrylic paintings are based on film stills from “Ramcharger,” a 1984 gay male pornographic film set in the desert. Curated by Bianca Boragi, a fellow Yalie, a selection of works from this series are currently view in an online exhibition at Zeit Contemporary Art.
