A Conversation: Keith Mayerson and Ryan Linkof
at Karma Los Angeles
Thursday, May 30, 6–7 pm

Karma presents a conversation between artist Keith Mayerson and Ryan Linkof, curator at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, Los Angeles, on the occasion of Mayerson’s exhibition My American Dream, City of Angels at 7351 Santa Monica Boulevard, Los Angeles, on view from May 23–July 19, 2024.

Keith Mayerson (b. 1966, Cincinnati, Ohio) paints familiar figures from American history and pop culture, personal scenes, and abstract “iconscapes.” Mayerson mines the histories and cultural resonance of his subjects—the Muppets, gay activists and icons, and national parks are all part of his extensive cosmology—transforming them into allegories of resilience and determination. Informed equally by his undergraduate education in semiotics and his decades of teaching cartooning, Mayerson considers his paintings to be embodiments of national sentiments. Using highly controlled brushstrokes and only colors in the CMYK system, he channels the French Impressionists, American modernists, and the Hudson River school in equal measure. While he paints, Mayerson immerses himself in media related to his subjects, inviting his subconscious to take over, leading to a practice that is at once research-based and psychologically-driven. Since the early 2000s, his ongoing, non-linear narrative My American Dream series has been presented in discrete exhibitions as chapters. Mayerson lives in Los Angeles.

Ryan Linkof joined the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in July 2018 as the museum’s first curator. Previously, he served as part of the founding curatorial team of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures and as a curator in the photography department at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. His research and curatorial projects explore the intersections of art and mass media. He has organized over twenty exhibitions, authored and edited numerous publications, and served as a visiting professor at University of Southern California and the California Institute of Technology.

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