Metropolis Japan

Aryo Toh Djojo: “Over My Head”

Nov 15, 2023 at 11:00am ~ Dec 27, 2023 at 7:00pm

Perrotin Tokyo is pleased to present Over My Head, the first solo exhibition in Asia by Los Angeles-based artist Aryo Toh Djojo, following his solo presentation at the inaugural Tokyo Gendai art fair earlier this year. This will be the first time the artist incorporates elements such as film and found photography, further exploring the notion of how we perceive truth. The show debuts a new body of paintings alluding to the artist’s continued interest in UFO sightings and the socio-political discourses that have arisen throughout history as a result.

Aryo Toh Djojo. Not Much, 2023. Acrylic on canvas. Framed: 43.8 x 54 cm | 17 1/4 x 21 1/4 inch. Photo: Keizo Kioku. Courtesy of the artist and Perrotin.

POINTS OF CONTACT

“On June 10, 2022 at 5:10 PM, three hours before sunset on this breezy summer Friday, Aryo Toh Djojo witnessed a brilliant flash of light above the rooftop of his studio in downtown Los Angeles. The sun was high, the clouds marbling the cornflower sky, so this blip of metallic radiance was odd. Too high to be a plane, moving too fast—and skirting across too many too many different vectors—to be a weather balloon, it disappeared so fast it left Toh Djojo with only one explanation: a UFO. As a dedicated Ufologist, Toh Djojo didn’t take this sighting lightly. The only other one he witnessed occurred more than two decades ago in Glendale when he was skateboarding around a friend’s driveway. At first, this group of high schoolers thought it was a helicopter, but when this similarly metallic orb hovering over this suburban house vanished into thin air, these teenage skate punks all turned to each other…and screamed.

Toh Djojo happened to catch this more recent flashpoint on video, and it served as a wellspring for a new series of paintings that incorporate the seriality of rooflines as a vantage point for framing phenomenological events. Unless you are perched along the California coast, up in the hills, or hovering at cruising altitude over LAX, horizon lines in Los Angeles are most often interpreted (or interrupted, depending on your perspective) by the various geometries of a roof. Majestic Mansards, flat mid-century planes, Moorish revival domes and metallic modernist slopes populate the city—and have historically graced the serialized works of Catherine Opie, Ed Ruscha, John Baldessari and countless other L.A. artists over the decades—but for Toh Djojo, the anonymous gable was the perfect pitch for his projective paintings comprising Over My Head, his solo debut in Tokyo”.

-Michael Slenske

Check out the whole essay, by Slenske, here.

This exhibition will open from 11am to 7pm with the exception of the opening reception that will be held on Wednesday, November 15 at Perrotin Tokyo. On the day of the opening, the artist will be in the gallery from 5pm to 7pm.

1984 | Born in Glendale, California, USA, currently lives in Los Angeles
Studied fine arts at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, USA (Bachelor of Fine Arts, 2017). With the airbrush technique at the heart of his artistic process, Toh Djojo creates experimental paintings that skillfully incorporate design principles such as visual perspective, color theory and there’s a consideration of formal elements in art. He also draws inspiration from Gerhard Richter, Viya Sermins, Ed Rusché, John Baldessari and Richard Prince among others. Many of Toh Djojo’s works depict the urban fabric of Los Angeles and resonate with the city’s unique subculture. Solo exhibitions include Stems Gallery (Brussels, Belgium, 2022) and Sow & Tailor (2022 Art Luxembourg for Stems Gallery (2021, Luxembourg), Wilding Cran Gallery (2021, Los Angeles, USA), Public Land (2021, Sacramento, USA), Weekend Gallery (Los Angeles, USA, 2018) among others. He’s been in lots of group exhibitions aswell.

If you would like to have more information, check here.