Born in 1983
Lives and works in Los Angeles, USA
Kara Joslyn explores themes of storytelling and illusion through her multi-dimensional paintings. The artist’s moonlit spaces merge fantasy and reality, creating allegories of her own that are at once unsettling and inviting. Using 1950s instructional craft books and mythology as source material, she relocates domestic and decorative figures into timeless, and uncanny scenes. As appropriator, forager, and translator, Joslyn engages the viewer’s eye as trickster. Interested in illusion, she uses a mixture of powdered optical automotive paint pigments that appear holographic. Her airbrush technique — historically used in graphic design before the invention of computers — heightens the atmosphere by creating a digital-like image, combined with Caravaggio inspired lighting. Altogether, the artist's tableaux allow us to travel back and forth in time, intertwining historical symbolism with futuristic dimensionality, as well as our own unconscious. As Joslyn says, “If photography is the false index — the truth that tells a lie, I like to think of painting as the trick — the lie that tells the truth."
education
2016 University of California San Diego, MFA Visual Arts
2011 Columbia University School of the Arts, Post Baccalaureate Summer Painting Intensive
2008 California College of the Arts, BFA Art Practice, Painting and Drawing
solo shows
2023
- Big Mouth Strikes Again, M+B, Los Angeles, CA, USA
- Please Throw Me Back in the Ocean, Perrotin, Seoul, South Korea
2022
- This is Hardcore, Perrotin, New York, NY, USA
2021
- Mirror Window Door, M+B, Los Angeles, CA, USA
2019
- Tragic Kingdom, M+B, Los Angeles, CA, USA
2018
- Dandy in the Underworld, Bozo Mag, Los Angeles, CA, USA
2017
- Semblance, with Soo Shin, LVL3, Chicago, IL, USA
2016
- Dashers Dashers, with Jonah Fernandez Olson, The Mt. Washington Yurt, Los Angeles, CA, USA
- No Future (MFA thesis exhibition), Visual Arts Gallery at University of California at San Diego, San Diego, CA, USA
2015
- Poseur with SANGREE, Land and Sea, Oakland, CA, USA
- Poseur with SANGREE, Structural & Materials Engineering Gallery at University of California at San Diego, San Diego, CA, USA
- Kara Vaggio Does Kazimir Malevich, solo booth curated by Trevor Amery for Date Night at the Mall, The UAG, San Diego, CA, USA
2014
- Tomorrow Never Comes, Experimental Drawing Studio, School of Structural & Materials Engineering, UC San Diego, San Diego, CA, USA
2013
- Kara Vaggio Does Sol LeWitt, S.H.E.D. Projects, Oakland, CA, USA
group shows
2023
- From LAX to CDG, Stems Gallery, Paris, France
2022
- Hot Concrete: LA to HK, K11 MUSEA, Hong Kong, China
2021
- Wild Frontiers, The Pit, Los Angeles, CA
- Stockholm Sessions, Carl Kostyal, Stockholm, Sweden
2020
- End Game, curated by Peter Wu, Epoch Gallery
2019
- Post Analog Studio, The Hole, New York, NY
- The Flat Files, The Pit, Glendale, CA
- Punkhouse vs. Dreamhouse, Serious Topics, Los Angeles, CA
- Artist Made Book Show, Blake and Vargas, Berlin, Germany
- Sweet Cheeks, Big Pictures, Los Angeles, CA
- Summer Group Show, Arthaus LA, Malibu, CA
2018
- 8, LVL3 Gallery, Chicago, IL
- Art Auction 2018, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, San Diego, CA
-Tiny Men on Tits and Friends, Chimento Contemporary, Los Angeles, CA
- Folded Canopy, Central Park Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
- Pluto, Guerrero Gallery, San Francisco, CA
- Vanitas by Veritas, Bozo Mag, Los Angeles, CA
2017
- Amplify Compassion: Art Sale to benefit the ACLU, 356 Mission, Los Angeles, CA
- Oro en Paz, BBQ LA, Los Angeles, CA
- All the Small Things, Steve Turner Contemporary, Los Angeles, CA
- California Connections: Selections from Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, California Center for the Arts, Escondido, CA
- Liminal, curated by Shelly Volsche, Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art, Las Vegas, NV
- Metal, Lava Projects, Los Angeles, CA
- Polaroid Black, Big Pictures Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA
2016
- Process, Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art, Las Vegas, NV
- 8, SPF 15 Exhibitions, San Diego, CA
- She Moonage Daydream, CULT / Aimee Friberg Exhibitions, San Francisco, CA
- Dossier Thalamus, curated by Selene Preciado, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, San Diego, CA
- New Things Are More, curated by Anthony Graham, UCSD Visual Arts Main Gallery UCSD, San Diego, CA
- Hunks, Egyptian Art and Antiques, Beverly Hills, CA
- Material Art Fair with Alter Space, (San Francisco), Mexico City, MX
- Printed Matter’s LA Art Book Fair & The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, VACANCY PROJECTS, Los Angeles, CA
- How High, curated by Ryan Travis Christian, Left Field Gallery, San Luis Obispo, CA
- Geo-Necro, ADA Gallery, Richmond, VA
2015
- Annual Group Show & Silent Auction, Oceanside Museum of Art, San Diego, CA
- Hide and Seek, curated by Alex Jen, Woodbury Architecture School, San Diego, CA
- Ducks: LA, curated by Ryan Travis Christian, Minotaur Projects, Los Angeles, CA
- Box of Books, curated by Darin Klein and Friends, Printed Matter’s LA Art Book Fair & The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, Los Angeles, CA
- #inthedesertwithanya, curated by Anya Gallaccio, Visual Arts Main Gallery, UC San Diego, San Diego, CA
2014
- Mineral Spirits, curated by Paloma Checa-Gismera and Noni Brynjolson, Structural & Materials Engineering Gallery, University of California San Diego, San Diego, CA
- Ducks: NY, Curated by Ryan Travis Christian, Greenpoint Terminal Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
- Annual Group Show and Auction, Oceanside Museum of Art, Oceanside, CA
- Crate Has Six Sides, curated by Paloma Checa-Gismera, Universidad del Pais Vasco, Bizkaia Aretoa, Sala Chillida, Bilbao, Spain
- Crater, curated by Marco Granados, Alternativa Oncè Gallery, Garza García, Nuevo Leon, Monterey, Mexico
- Mux Demux, curated by Darin Klein and Friends, Commonwealth & Council, Los Angeles, CA
- Still Life with Parallax: A Holography Project, Experimental Drawing Studio, School of Structural and Materials Engineering, University of California San Diego, San Diego, CA
2013
- The Show, Unspeakable Projects, San Francisco, CA
- See You at the Show, curated by Mauri Skinfill, Public Works Gallery, San Francisco, CA
- Tear it Out II, curated by Serena Cole, California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA
- Tear it Out I, curated by Serena Cole, Issues, Oakland, CA
2012
- Where My Cones At? II, curated by Ryan Travis Christian, POV-Evolving Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
- Where My Cones At?, curated by Ryan Travis Christian, Double Break, San Diego, CA
- The Empty Vessel, curated by Josh Reames, Manifest Exhibitions, Chicago, IL
- Snow Dream, Eleanor Harwood Gallery, San Francisco, CA
public collections
Marjorie Barrick Museum, Las Vegas, NV
Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, CA