Roberts Projects debuts a solo exhibition titled “Solitary Us: Couples Paintings” by Daniel Crews-Chubb. This new body of work, produced during the lockdown period in the UK amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, continues Crews-Chubb’s exploration of human relationships and are self-reflective and reactionary to the sense of isolation the artist experienced at the time. 

Mimicking statuesque poses repeated throughout history, Crews-Chubb’s Couples paintings feel nostalgically familiar. Inspired by ancient artifacts depicting gods, goddesses and mythology in art, in addition to human-animal hybrids, or therianthropes, and other hybridized creatures, Crews-Chubb’s figures reinterpret these stories while accentuating their heroic and powerful themes. They combine the idealizations of beauty and harmony of the Romanesque period with the simplicity and bold lines from ancient Egyptian art, while including direct references from Dogū pottery from the Jōmon period of prehistoric Japan, Celtic masks from the Bronze Age, headdresses and helmets inspired by pre-Columbian and Roman artefacts, and—perhaps most relevant to the Couples paintings—the Sarcophagus of the Spouses, a late sixth-century BC Etruscan anthropoid sarcophagus from Caere.

On view: July 10 – August 14, 2021

What: Daniel Crews-Chubb
Where: 5801 Washington Blvd., Culver City, 90232  
Phone: 1.323.549.0223
Website: https://www.robertsprojectsla.com