Jobi Bicos
Dragon Guts
December 11, 2021–January 30, 2022
Reception: Saturday December 11, 6–9pm
A body is a strange thing to carry around. It holds the promise of liberation while also serving the carceral gaze of a society married to a binary worldview. It’s the paucity of imagination manifesting demise. A demise that permeates every layer of being intent on forcing classification.
In Jobi Bicos’ world, the monochromatic drawings paradoxically eschew us away from a lackluster world, into one bursting with boundless possibilities. Imagine if you will, waking up and waltzing with your inner demons. A symbiosis of your deepest fears and your wildest fantasies blending with dragons and chimeras roaming a world adjacent to ours. The characters live in a parallel dimension that revels in the bounty of all the things we’re told are impossible. Their physique transcends both language and gender. The fabric of existence is woven by shapes and textures that bear a vague resemblance to things we’ve seen in our earthly realm: teeth, cells, sinuous roads forming labyrinths. The only roadmap to this world is intuition.
Here, Jobi wonders, what if we were made of dreams? What if our consciousness is merely a portal to iterations of ourselves that transcend all earthly limitations? Their drawings contain an unshakable faith in magic that is palpable but just out of reach. Their work asks you to leave the world as you know it behind and plunge into a universe where the laws of physics remain unwritten. You can color these drawings with your mind’s eye however you wish or leave them as they are. Like traditional puzzle pieces, these works in their unassuming size are tools that come together to form an image of a universe devoid of rigid structures and antiquated beliefs. The difference here being, that these drawings nudge us to bring pieces of that world back into the one we inhabit.
So, go on. Look to your left, then to your right. Your compass is your imagination.
— Lara Atallah, December 2021
Jobi Bicos creates paintings and drawings exploring the possibilities of visualization, fantasy, and sensation in conceptions of their body in space. Born in Arcadia, California (1993)—they received their BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute (2014) and MFA at the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard (2020). Their work has been included in group exhibitions at 1038, 100%, Altman Siegel, Ratio 3, and Et al etc. in San Francisco; and Nicelle Beauchene Gallery in New York. They live and work in Los Angeles.
With gratitude to Jordan Barse.