Sage Vaughn I Nobody’s Young
It gives us great pleasure to invite you to our first solo exhibition of the American artist Sage Vaughn.
Sage Vaughn (born 1976 in Jackson, Oregon) lives and works in Los Angeles. The Californian by choice began his artistic career with graffiti and street art in the streets of Los Angeles. Over recent years, street art has grown into a globally networked scene in which applied architecture and city criticism, design and art in public spaces merge to create new, experimental forms of expression. This is where Vaughn, who knows the scene well, comes in. His pictures not only reveal the influence of the genre, they translate motifs from design, art or street lives into classic oil paintings.
In terms of content, the “Nobody’s young” exhibition revolves around questions of identity as well as the psychological background and conditions of human existence. Vaughn’s protagonists seem to be searching for themselves against the background of their urban, often problematic life reality. The “Wildlives” series of pictures, a work in progress since last year, takes up the magic and the peculiarity of everyday American life on the West Coast. Just as ornithologists study their winged wonders in peace, Vaughn examines the astounding and enigmatic personalities that people carry within themselves. He is particularly interested in children. He puts them in costumes and masks which do not, however, hide their personality, but rather underline their individuality and vulnerability.
A second series entitled “Migration” reverses the perspective. A crowd of shouting, screaming, gesticulating people can be seen as a grey background. The crowd appears driven, hurrying after fluttering, colourful butterflies. The brightly coloured specimens are portrayed in the foreground with clearly dripping paint as a luring, fleeting phenomenon in keeping with their nature.