* All images used with permission. Please do not distribute without first contacting the artist.
Even as a little boy, artist Joshua Krause found great pleasure in picking up the tiny pieces of trash that littered New York City, and was constantly reprimanded by his folks for picking things up with his hands. But one day, Joshua dropped down to his hands and knees on the sidewalk, lowered his head, and picked up a piece of gum with his mouth. It was this genius rationale that unquestionably pushed little Joshua in the direction of artist. Joshua lives in San Diego, and he uses paintbrushes, sandpaper, his hands, and yes, sometimes even his mouth.
His paintings and sculptures are manifestations of an obsession, humor, and hope in finding his individual path in a world that seems to be on another page. These “new relics” exist as both objects/ideas that take themselves too seriously on one end, and tongue-in-cheek on the other, created in a world that is simultaneously absurd and reasonable. Their meanings and symbols, explained through poetic titling, are to be studied and decoded as an archaeologist or art historian would. They can also be viewed as the inside jokes and observations of a comedian piecing together his act. Joshua’s work questions the status of the permanent and impermanent, and the fleeting and flowing nature of life, death, and the eternal.
