Aron Packer Projects

For Immediate Release: March 19, 2018.  Contact: Aron Packer 773.458.3150

Jason Lahr / Head Glitch / Paintings on shaped panels

Event Date: Artist’s Reception: Saturday, April 7, 4 – 8 PM

We are pleased to announce our 4th exhibition, Head Glitch by Jason Lahr at our permanent pop–up space in River North near Chicago and Wells.  Head Glitch will feature recent paintings on shaped panels, a vinyl letter installation on 4 large windows in the gallery space, and a new catalog for the exhibition. This will be his fifth outing with Aron Packer Projects.

Head Glitch is a video gaming term–while playing Call of Duty you get behind something where only your head is showing but you can still shoot your gun as if nothing is in front of you.  It's a clever advantage for the player using it but an exercise in frustration for the player it's used against.  Though his work is confrontational, Lahr’s point is not to make the artist /viewer relationship adversarial.  Contained yet curated, Lahr deploys multiple elements.  Expect the paintings to be geometrically aggressive, intensely colorful, with vertigo inducing combinations of imagery and words. 

Type driven text is seminal in Lahr’s work.  It dynamically floats on all of his paintings within the meandering perimeter, and sometimes stands alone as the main element.  Lahr writes these concentrated thoughts as if pilfered from an Elmore Leonard novel.  The paintings draw from multiple thought perspectives: narrative theory, contemporary and postmodern fiction, semiotics, feminism, and film theory. These are employed to explore the formation and shaping of working class masculine identity through mass culture. Additionally, the visual language of digital culture–derived from video games, early computer imaging, and .jpg glitches–is combined with traditional painting techniques and references to illustration, print media, and graphic design, to create a complex network that addresses the articulation of masculinity manifested in Generation X. 

Bio 

Jason Lahr was born and raised in rural Pennsylvania. He received his M.F.A. in drawing and painting from Penn State University and his B.F.A. in painting from Clarion University.  His work is located in private and public collections across the U.S. and Europe. Since 2004, he has been represented by Aron Packer Projects in Chicago, IL. 

Aron Packer Projects at Chicago Gallery News / 213 W Institute Place, #309 (3rd floor)

There will be a mid show event on Saturday, May 5 at 3pm: a one on one conversation with Maria Tomasula, the Michael P. Grace Professor of Painting at the University of Notre Dame.  Tomasula is a colleague of Lahr's from Notre Dame where they both teach.  Aron Packer Projects is located within the Chicago Gallery News offices. We are open 5 days a week from 11 to 4 PM.  Weekdays one should call first (312.649.0064). Otherwise you can just show up on Saturdays from 11 to 4 and we will be there. 

This exhibition is made possible in part by support from the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts, College of Arts and Letters, University of Notre Dame.

Jason Lahr / Head Glitch

Paintings on shaped panels

April 7 – May 19, 2018

Artist’s Reception: Saturday, April 7, 4 – 8 PM

Conversation with Maria Tomasula and Jason Lahr: Saturday, May 5, 3-4pm

Gallery Hours:  Tuesday – Saturday 11 to 4 pm 

Weekdays call first 312.649.0064 / Ring directory #006