Jerry Alexis Peña, "Corner Store Blues," 2025

Los Angeles-based painter, Jerry Peña’s (b. 1991, Los Angeles, CA) recent paintings deploy traditional painting materials alongside automotive glass, hardware, photographs, and found materials to create works that conjure the textures and atmospheres of Los Angeles’ built environment. Much of the city abuts industrial areas and these corridors of manufacturing plants, commercial storage, auto shops, and transportation are densely layered and textured. This palette of cheap latex exterior paint, graffiti, black dust, stucco, chrome, and peeling posters seen through the windshield forms the dominant impression in Peña’s work. Closer looking reveals decorative motifs from middle and lower income neighborhoods, remnants of Americana design, and other symbols and icons that evoke a critical relationship to masculinity, the impact of industrial labor on the environment and the body, and the artist’s personal history. 

 

Peña holds a BA from Cal State Long Beach and is an MFA candidate at the University of California, Los Angeles. Inspired by Rasquachismo, Abstract Expressionism, and Post Minimalism, he is developing a visual language that unites post-war American painting with Brown and Chicano art history. Recent exhibitions include You Ain’t Gotta Lie to Kick It, Le Maximum, Los Angeles, CA; Nexus IV Raiz, Brand Library, Glendale, CA; Group Shoe 3, House of Seiko, San Francisco, CA; and A Rose by Any Other Name, Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles, CA.