Jamian Juliano-Villani’s First and Last

New York-based American artist Jamian Juliano-Villani is enamoured with the banality of everyday life. The artist made headlines in when her gallery O’Flaherty’s was shut down by police due to the mobs that formed outside. It reopened with a bang in February 2023 in a former improv theatre and kicked off with a show that included an interactive sculptural installation of a giant slice of pizza and a performance where the artists painted with brushes in their rectums.

Her new paintings at Gagosian remind us that reality is still a source of beauty. Juliano-Villani draws on a vast array of pop culture references, from movies and memes to stock photography and art history. Her uncanny and evocative paintings blend chaos and vibrancy to reflect on the pandemonium of daily existence. Her latest work in ‘It’, her debut show at Gagosian New York, provides a tonic to the typical extravagance of her paintings.

First: 2nd May, 2016, 4:32 PM

My first professional studio above a silkscreen factory, there is a Brian Belott artwork (blue on the left), an award for Jasmin Tsou (it says “Most Upwardly Mobile”), and to the right of it a Mort Drucker drawing for me of Sherlock Holmes, and on the upper right hand corner a drawing I barely could afford to frame by Ella Krugylnskya.

Last: 28th March, 2024, 1:15 AM

My desk; A bag, A book, glasses, a friend, gasoline