Jake Longstreth is best-known for his paintings depicting trees and landscapes distinct to Southern California, as well as architectural monuments to commercial hubs of the 1990s. Longstreth marries a stark, graphic realism with a landscape painter’s sensitivity to light and atmosphere. The artist’s distinct style is epitomized by the glowing, gradating skies where rich blues seamlessly fade into filthy browns and ashen greys. In the architectural paintings, Longstreth focuses on the ruinous monuments of the recent past – dying or dead retail giants like Circuit City and Toys R Us. Yet in these paintings, such a grandiose depiction of banality is not without smiling irony. Longstreth straddles a line between humor, beauty and a frank appraisal of what we’ve built.
Jake Longstreth (b. 1977, Sharon, CT; lives and works in Los Angeles) received his MFA from California College of the Arts in San Francisco, CA. He has been included in numerous solo and group exhibitions at Gregory Lind Gallery, San Francisco; Crisp Ellert Museum, St. Augustine, Florida; Monya Rowe Gallery, New York; M Woods, Beijing; Blum & Poe, Los Angeles and Mahan Gallery, Columbus.