Joshua Tonies & Joe Yorty
The Treachery of Pleather
March 9 - April 13, 2024
The Treachery of Pleather is the culmination of several months of cooperation between artists Joshua Tonies and Joe Yorty. While their studio work, in terms of both content and material, diverges in several ways, working together synthesized areas of convergence. In particular, themes of queerness and invisibility/visibility emerged and ultimately became the foundation of their collaboration.
Their work together started with a series of diptych collages crafted through a call-and-response process using mezzotint printing, vintage wallpaper, and vinyl shelf liner that approach topics of memory, nostalgia, and the home. The final five collages, mounted to creased aluminum sheet, are included in this exhibition.
Pointing to themes of visibility and “passing” as queer people, the artists referenced dazzle camouflage patterns from British and U.S. World War I era ship design as a basis to design a large site-specific wallpaper mural. This work merges images of source materials from each artist’s individual projects including stills taken from a recent animation of Joshua’s former home and a photo archive of faux stone surfaces found in Joe’s daily life.
In addition to a single independent work by each artist, the exhibition includes another collaborative work - an animation referencing modernist tropes in early video game technology that imagines a utopian landscape of simulated surfaces.
The works assembled in this exhibition gather to speak to the artists’ individual experience maneuvering the world in their queer bodies. In addition, this presentation offers connections to broader cultural and
historical themes that strive to touch on more universal or collective narratives.
Joshua Tonies is an artist working with drawing and the moving image, focusing on temporary ecological studies expressed through animation, drawing, works on paper, and book arts. His work delves into the interplay of the artificial and natural, using faux and synthetic materials to explore themes of queer identity, transformation, and ecological consciousness.
Joshua is a Visiting Assistant Professor at University of San Diego and Lecturer at UC San Diego, teaching courses in animation, video art, and studio arts. He has exhibited his work at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal, The Center for Fiction in NYC, Comfort Station in Chicago, Illinois, and the San Diego Museum of Art.
www.joshtonies.com
@joshtonies
Joe Yorty is an interdisciplinary artist who employs a range of materials, objects, and methods to make work that largely addresses the anxieties and absurdities of American domestic culture. Including sculpture, collage, video, and photography his studio practice grapples with the stuff of thrift store refuse, last-minute estate sale deals, and the occasional dumpster dive to rub against the pathos of the ceaseless search for fulfillment in the accumulation of things that, to a large extent, defines the American experience in the 21st century. His work has been shown on both coasts of the United States and some places in between.
Joe was born in southwest Utah, raised in Southern California, served 11 years in the U.S. Navy, and received an MFA in Visual Art at UCSD in 2013. He currently lives and works in San Diego where he serves as the founding Creative Director for the not-for-profit gallery and project space BEST PRACTICE.
www.joeyorty.com
@joejoejoe_yorty
