Joshua

Fred Tomaselli is a self-described "maximalist" who is known for dazzling compositions, some abstract, others figurative, made with paint, resin, and found materials, including images of flora and fauna as well as mind- and body-altering substances such as marijuana leaves, prescription tablets, and over-the-counter pills. Typical of the work that secured his reputation in the early 1990s, Joshua consists of a diamond-shaped wood panel onto whose surface Tomaselli has painted an image of a Joshua tree, that eccentric denizen of the surreal desert landscape of Joshua Tree National Park. The tree appears as a black silhouette against an indigo sky studded with stars. Into the panel the artist carved a channel that winds around itself, later inserting yellow-orange Benadryl capsules and covering the entire surface with a layer of clear resin, a material whose utility and sensuousness Tomaselli came to appreciate while making surfboards in Los Angeles in the 1970s and 1980s. For the artist, resin is also associated with vehicles that serve to transport individuals from one (ordinary) place to another (extraordinary) place, not unlike paintings such as Joshua, whose patterning is meant to suggest (if not catalyze) what he has called a "transcendental" experience.