THE OFFICE. Gallery and F2T Gallery present I DONT NEED IT, BUT I WANT IT, a group exhibition featuring artists Callum Eaton, Jonathan Casella, Kristopher Raos, Saj Issa, Sam Keller, Stephanie H. Shih, and Tim Irani.

The group show consists of an impactful selection of artists within the same generation, incorporating a variety of techniques and through distinct cultural perspectives. The selected artists will bring forth a collective body of work highlighting the global culture crisis of mass production and capitalism, emphasizing the cliche or kitschy elements of our cultures, through the use of irony and pop art elements.

Open Hours: November 28th - January 29th, 11am - 7pm.

This co-curated exhibition brings to light the ongoing global consumerism issues that we currently face and how that is impacting our everyday lives, from a psychological, physical, and environmental perspective. The selected artists will bring forth a collective body of work highlighting the global culture crisis of mass production and capitalism, emphasizing the cliche or kitschy elements of our cultures, through the use of irony and pop art elements.

The group show is curated to reflect the global consumerism crisis, through sculpture, ceramics, and paintings. Acclaimed artists such as Eduardo Sarabia (MX), Sam Keller (LA), and Stephanie H. Shih (NY), explore the complex cultural exchanges of consumer goods, through their use of ceramics and sculpture, reflecting products such as food produce boxes, intricately-decorated bags of Botan rice, containers of chili oil, and in Sam Keller’s case, flattened Coca-Cola or La Croix can into a beautiful gleaming object coated in Swarovski crystals and sculpts giant Cheetos in hollow spheres and small stacks.

Highlighting similar concerns through their use of stunning abstract or hyper realistic works, notable artists Callum Eaton (UK), Jonathon Casella (LA), Kristopher Roas (LA), Saj Issa (LA), and Tim Irani (LA) investigate the parallels between our cultures and capitalism. LA-based artist, Saj Issa reinterprets domestic objects that reference her personal experiences to religion, politics, and parallels of the East and West as a response to the denial of her Palestinian ancestral history and cultural existence. Her work is a representation about her personal experiences of displacement, identity, and social issues.

Meanwhile, ceramicist Stephanie H. Shih explores the material relics of migration and colonialism through the lens of the Asian American diaspora. Her painted ceramic sculptures examine the relationship between cultural interchange, consumerism, and identity in immigrant communities. Shih’s Asian-American ceramic sculptures—intricately-decorated bags of Botan rice, containers of chili oil, countless brands of soy sauce and over a thousand porcelain dumplings—evoke notions of time in the form of diasporic nostalgia, as she refers to it. LA-based artist Kristopher Roas on the other hand, illustrates his interest in Humor, precise (DIY) techniques and attention to craft. His paintings are emblematic of advertising gone wild. Raos’ paintings seethe with energy, as if the action-oriented graphics could fly off the canvas in an intense drive to create sales and new, perfect products. His bold works are highly refined pop art which depict the packaging for a variety of different products, in this case automobiles. Through assortments of bold color patterns, LA-based artist Jonathon Casella investigates 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.

Tim Irani’s work captures our obsession with the potential of digital products to optimize our lived experience. He provides commentary on how quickly everything, from the newest iPhone to cat memes, becomes obsolete. In doing so, he lends a voice to the trees, the birds, and to technology itself, imagining each as its own sentient entity capable of feeling and cross-communication.
Similarly, Bath-based artist Callum Eaton is interested inobserving current culture and society. His paintings are a document of what Callum notices as a passive observer, poking fun at the mess we leave in our wake. Only recently beginning his hyper-realistic paintings to showcase “the beauty of the mundane” – whether that be depicting carrier bags or cucumbers, Callum had his painting of a parking ticket shortlisted by the Royal Academy.

There’s been a resurgence of artists fascinated and intrigued by the consumer culture and the way it shapes our society. Yet, this relationship between art and the distribution and consumption of commodities has always been complicated.It was the mid-1950s when the art world introduced a new movement which, oddly, both celebrated and criticized choices and mass (re)production. It was all about capitalism, the unlimited market, having it all, and always wanting more. At first perceived as the American phenomenon, the consumerist lifestyle has spilled over to the rest of the world through globalization and the rise of the free market economy.

This new phenomenon is carefully highlighted in our show, I DONT NEED IT, BUT I WANT IT, mixing a variety of artists and mediums to express a variety of perspectives through differing cultural backgrounds and environments.