The new show by the artist TRNZ at Thinkspace in Los Angeles is filled with paintings that evoke children’s storybook illustrations, but suggest some deeper, serious and contemplative facet of childhood experience.
The show is titled “The Weight of Things” and the children depicted in TRNZ’s works each appears freighted with burdensome thoughts. They look pensive, perhaps in fractionary moments of petulance, eyes cast downward or lost in the middle distance, suffused with some mild anxiety amidst the otherwise joyous occasions of play.
These paintings are cute, to the extent that the subject matter itself, children, by its nature, can be cute. But these paintings are also somber, tinged with a bittersweet poignancy, liminal flashes of innocence weighed down and ultimately worn down with more grown-up worries.
Viewing TRANZ’s work reminds of the artwork of Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara. Nara’s images are themselves almost child-like and depict outwardly expressive, angry-eyed little girls on the verge of random acts of evil, which have become iconic in their own right. TRNZ’s subjects, however, are engaged with the inner world of their thoughts, on the cusp of sadness, personal epiphany or self-revelation.
