Philip Martin Gallery is proud to present, "Perennials," an exhibition of paintings and ceramics by Los Angeles-based artist David Korty. For over 25 years, David Korty has made dynamic pictures and objects that explore painterly space, handmade forms and the various points at which they intersect.
David Korty is one of the most important artists to come out of the early 2000s Los Angeles scene, having first shown his work at landmark gallery China Art Objects, which served a vital role in connecting LA artists not only to New York, but also to the UK and Europe. Born into a film-making family in Northern California, David Korty first attended the Rhode Island School of Design; later, he attended graduate school at UCLA. David Korty's paintings take an open and experimental approach: "I think that my exposure to filmmaking and animation introduced me to the notion that images are full of individual parts and that any image, whether filmed or painted can be edited, rearranged and cut up in an endless variety of ways. The entire world can exist inside of that rectangular frame depending on how you approach it."
David Korty's recent works such as "Hearts and Bones" and "Judy's Comet" are a kind of botanic meditation on the ways in which natural subject matter - be it exotic plants, insects, vases or flowers - can be figured using line, color, shape and repeating patterns. The viewer's eye moves across the canvas through all-over compositions punctuated by little surprises: leaves, petals and flower stalks; letterforms; stylized handprints; wry references to Korty's on-going interest in graphics, surface and text design. "The person looking at the painting can take the painting apart and put it back together again as their eye moves across the surface," he notes. One might look perhaps first from the close-up vantage point of a beetle; then travel into something distant like a deep purple summer sky; then sit back to watch the play of light and shadow across the room as the sun moves overhead.
David Korty's works are warm, inclusive and humanistic. Via precise yet loose brushwork Korty adds depth to the surface quality of his work, emphasizing the deep pleasure in both looking and making. David Korty's ceramic works - several of which are included in the show - consider how handmade forms come together and how they can be pushed in their realization. Ceramics designed by Korty in fact appear in the paintings, serving as reimagined graphic containers for the clusters of lines, dots and shapes - invented sunflowers, daisies, poppies - that spring up in the middle of his pictorial compositions. Korty's works are a chance to look, to consider, to engage with the world, enliven the senses and think about what might be possible from a variety of vantage points, both those of others and our own.
David Korty (b. 1971, San Francisco, CA) received his BFA in 1992 from Rhode Island School of Design (Providence, RI) and his MFA in 1999 from University of California, Los Angeles (Los Angeles, CA). Institutional solo and group exhibitions include Orange County Museum of Art (Newport Beach, CA); The Wexner Center for the Arts (Columbus, OH); Kunstmuseum Basel (Basel, Switzerland); Museum für Gegenwartskunst Basel (Basel, Switzerland); Kunsthalle Basel (Basel, Switzerland); Charlottenburg Exhibition Hall (Copenhagen, Denmark); Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art (Toronto, Canada); 4th Gwangju Biennale (Gwangju, South Korea); and Auckland Art Gallery (Auckland, New Zealand); Solo exhibtions include Night Gallery (Los Angeles, CA); Derek Eller Gallery (New York, NY); Sadie Coles HQ (London, UK); Wallspace (New York, NY); Kimmerich Gallery (New York, NY): Mary Mary (Glasgow, UK); Gerhardsen Gerner (Berlin, Germany); Michael Kohn Gallery (Los Angeles, CA); M Art (Seoul, South Korea); China Art Objects (Los Angeles, CA); Galleria Il Capricorno (Venice, Italy); and Greene Naftali Gallery (New York, NY). Group exhibitions include Jessica Silverman (San Francisco, CA); Gavin Brown's Enterprise (New York, NY); Venus Over Manhattan (New York, NY); Franklin Parrasch Gallery (New York, NY); David Zwirner Gallery (New York, NY) and Galleria Raucci/Santamaria (Naples, Italy). Public Collections include Museum of Modern Art (New York, NY); Judith Rothschild Foundation (Philadelphia, PA); Hammer Museum (Los Angeles, CA); Grunwald Center for Graphic Arts (Los Angeles, CA); Rubell Collection (Miami, FL); Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery (Saratoga Springs, NY); Collection Olbricht (Berlin, Germany) and Goetz Collection (Munich, Germany). David Korty's work has been reviewed in such publications as Artforum, Bookforum, Modern Painters, Flash Art, The New York Times, The Guardian, Los Angeles Times, Art Review, Tema Celeste, artUS, Time Out, Frieze, New York Magazine, The New Yorker, Art Issues, The Village Voice and The Yale Review, David Korty is represented by Sadie Coles HQ (London, UK) and Derek Eller Gallery (New York, NY). He lives and works in Los Angeles.
David Korty's exhibition, “Perennials,” is online July 9 - July 23, 2026. All works can be viewed at the gallery by appointment.
Philip Martin Gallery is open Wednesday - Saturday from 11-5. For additional images, or information please email info@philipmartingallery.com, or call 323-507-2037. Philip Martin Gallery is located at 3342 Verdugo Road, Los Angeles, CA 90065.
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