Exhibitions

M+B is pleased to present Blue Sentinel, an exhibition of new works by Jonathan Casella. This marks Casella's second solo presentation with the gallery. Jonathan Casella's Blue Sentinel marks a decisive evolution in the artist's practice—retaining the graphic precision and visual velocity of his earlier Double Star paintings, while stripping them down to a denser, more self-contained syntax. In this new body of work, the compositions operate less like constellations in motion and more like sentinels: stoic, standing forms bristling with intention, bearing a kind of structural vigilance. Rendered in a moody, weighted palette of blues, browns, and saturated blacks—with assertive flashes of pink, lavender, and pale yellow—the works deploy sharp geometries and weapon-like motifs that teeter between architectural schematic and abstract icon. In Blue Sentinel, Casella achieves something rare: a maximal presence through minimal narrative, a pure visual authority that asserts itself without flinching.

BOZOMAG is excited to announce "Rippy Bits", an exhibition by Jonathan Casella at our Cresthaven location. The exhibition is anchored by the largest work ever made by the artist — an 86 x 116 inch painting entitled "Then, From a Waning Sprint, it Became a Walking Opera." Fragmented and energetic images visually ricochet throughout the canvas. Inside jokes, self-referential nods to Casella's own practice, and renowned artworks coyly flirt with ideas of appropriation and ownership. Candid photographs meticulously collected of friends and strangers combine to depict a "pictorial microsphere" — an interior brain space of tangibly accumulated inspirations past and present, functioning as a living document, intent to immortalize an era. "Rippy Bits" mixes radical vulnerability with a sense of humor, a concoction that can only be equated with the sophistication of existence.

The Pit is pleased to present a solo show of new works by Jonathan Casella, the gallery's very last exhibition in the Glendale location. Jonathan Casella imagined palatial vessels capable of holding the elusive, incandescent inner workings of his mind where memories, emotions, and ideas meet and merge. The nine paintings in This Palace offer blueprints or foundations for such mental monuments, replete with graphic patterns, kaleidoscopic compositions, collaged imagery, and a phosphorescent color palette. "I wanted to know what it would look like to contain life, feelings, sentimentality, and nostalgia into a structure, a seemingly non-functional vessel," explains the artist. Much like a Rorschach test or a "choose your own adventure" story, the compositions offer infinite opportunities for comprehension, interpretation, and visual stimulation. Casella laid the foundation and built the structure, but the castle's contents remain open for co-creation and reanimation. —Tara Anne Dalbow

F2T Gallery presents Jonathan Casella at the Marfa Invitational 2023. Works on view include paintings from the ongoing Big Sky and Head series — large-scale acrylic on canvas over panel. Works shown include Big Sky. As We Try the Path (177.8 × 185.42 cm), Big Sky. Lit from the abyss, a heat so warm the land stopped humming (162.56 × 139.7 cm), (Head) Live a little; have another, (Head) Detour to Paradise… not lost, but not quite there, and (Head) Ok! Ok! Ok!

WOAW Gallery is pleased to debut Jonathan Casella's Pink Diamond Too. This is Casella's first solo exhibition in Asia and marks the gallery's first exhibition with the artist. The exhibition showcases Casella's personal experiences and reflections, depicted through his ongoing "Doublestar" series, and paintings that incorporate carefully selected found images and photography of flowers from California. Featuring 11 artworks, the show explores the intersections between abstract and realistic elements through photographic imagery arranged in collages reminiscent of a vibrant comic strip. Like the elusiveness of pink diamonds, Casella's paintings highlight how coded imagery can influence our perception of reality. His works, despite the intricate process behind their construction, are simply acrylic paint on canvas — but in the hands of Casella, they can become pink diamonds too.

Harper's is pleased to present Doublestar, Jonathan Casella's first exhibition with the gallery. Featuring a new series of the artist's trademark compositions composed of riotous amalgams of dots, checkers, stripes, and bold swaths of color. Over the past two years, Casella has approached his work through a singular lens: the "doublestar" — referring to the astronomical phenomenon of two stars that appear as one given their proximity to Earth, interpreted through a pair of five-pointed geometric polygons laid atop one another. Casella's approach to painting aims to expand and challenge the strict geometric rubric outlined by Josef Albers and the non-objective spirituality of Kazimir Malevich. By wielding a maximalist sensibility through use of high-key colors, pattern, repetition, and pastiche, he continues a postmodern legacy brought to both highbrow and mass consumer consciousness through movements such as the Memphis Group. The paintings featured in Doublestar are Casella's largest to date — taken together, the exhibition forms a constellation, each painting a supernova burning with a unique and palpable energy.

Mindy Solomon is pleased to present the first Miami solo exhibition of Los Angeles based artist Jonathan Casella. When one experiences a Casella painting, they are immediately overwhelmed by the richness of color — a series of loose, generous brush marks that convey energy and joy. In his Wet Sisters series, Casella finds the process of painting a release from other bodies of work that he has developed. "The Wet Sister paintings come from a place of exercise and play. Their origins are with the Doublestar paintings — I would get to a point with the Doublestars where I was restricted from working on them because of paint drying and layering, but I still wanted to paint. So I decided to take the pre-made backgrounds of the Doublestars at the time and play with the oil paint I had sitting around (that is where the wet part comes in). There was no goal or expected outcome with these paintings." —Jonathan Casella

F2T Gallery presents Doublestar III, the third iteration of Jonathan Casella's ongoing Doublestar body of work. Works on view include the Doublestar Splits series — a new development in which the central Doublestar form is fractured and distributed across the compositional field. Paintings include Doublestar Splits I through IX (2022), in two scales: large at 152.4 × 134.6 cm and small at 87.3 × 77.5 cm, all acrylic on panel. Casella's vivid, vibrant, and highly stylized compositions explore geometric abstraction through his signature hard-edged visual syntax — direct, commanding, and rooted in the traditions of Pop Art and non-objective painting.

M+B is pleased to present an exhibition of new paintings by Jonathan Casella. Doublestar is the artist's first show with the gallery. Jonathan Casella's paintings investigate the possibilities and relationships between color, pattern and form. The works are bold and graphic, imbued with playfulness and a pop sensibility. His brilliantly hued works are built up from the canvas, the surfaces layered and textured, imitating the effect of collage. The Doublestar series stems from Casella's desire to create a body of work that explores humanity without attending to direct representation. The form of the double star is the five-pointed star paired with its inverted self and can be seen as the symbol of body and spirit. Casella's Doublestars are embodiments of the ideal form, where body and soul are in unison. Serving as both symbol and formal device, they capture this union, along with the inflections and intimations of the contrasting hues and geometric elements.