JAMES GOBEL (1972 - )
brBefore Paramount. Felt, yarn and acrylic paint on canvas mounted on board, 2004. 711x609 mm; 28x24 inches. Signed, titled and dated in ink, verso.Provenance: acquired from Kravets Wehby Gallery with gallery label, verso, private collection, NY (2005).Exhibited: Ridicule is Nothing to Be Scared of, Kravets Wehby Gallery, New York, 2005.Ridicule is Nothing to Be Scared of is an excellent example of James Gobel's felt artworks that he began making in the 1990s. He first draws his figures in pencil and then in yarn, and then creates a mosaic of felt pieces. The use of felt emits drama and solicits empathy for its character from the viewer. Inspired by the Bear community and Edwardianism, Gobel channels Aubrey Beardsley, Peter Max, and 1980s New Wave imagery. He uses the ideologies of feminist and queer theories to forge a vignette of a zaftig gay man. Gobel's foreshadows issues of gender and physicality while emoting while constructing a language outside of a perceived societal norm.Born in 1972 in Portland, Oregon, James Gobel received his BFA at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 1996 and his MFA at the University of California, Santa Barbara, 1999. He had a solo exhibition at the UCLA Hammer Museum in 2000 and has been included in group exhibitions at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, Des Moines Art Center, Asian Art Museum San Francisco, Akron Art Museum, Parrish Art Museum and the New Museum in New York. Gobel is a professor in the Painting and Drawing Program at California College of the Arts.