Josh Sperling 'Big Picture' Print Available
Artist: Josh Sperling
Title: Big Picture
Medium: Offset Print
Size: 70 x 39 cm
Edition: 100
Price: $200
Josh Sperling, born 1984 in Oneonta, New York, makes shaped canvases vibrate like neon topographies. Drawing first on screen, he feeds vector curves into a CNC router, laminating wafer thin plywood into undulating strata that echo 1960s minimalism and the Memphis Group’s playful geometry. Raw Belgian linen is then stretched over these skeletal hills, locked with staples, and saturated in custom mixed acrylic over 1,200 proprietary colors mixed in his Ithaca barn studio where ten assistants sand, seam, and spray. The resulting objects hover between painting, sculpture, and design: monochrome “Squiggles” bounce light so aggressively they seem to hum; modular “Composites” slot together like psychedelic Tetris, swallowing entire gallery walls in candy apple gradients.
Early rejection shows in skate shops that sold nothing gave way to a 2016 breakthrough at Joshua Liner Gallery, followed by rapid adoption by Emmanuel Perrotin, who now stages Sperling’s exhibitions from New York to Seoul. Public commissions include a rainbow bench for the SCAD Museum and the four-panel, 30 metre long Big Picture at Perrotin Los Angeles, purposely split so viewers register unity before noticing the seams. Influenced by Ellsworth Kelly’s hard-edge planes and Keith Haring’s rhythmic line, Sperling also credits five years as studio assistant to KAWS for demystifying the art market. Up next: limited edition furniture that translates his warped canvas language into functional ash-wood tables, ensuring the loop between utility and pure optical joy keeps spinning.
