KIRK PEDERSEN: TRADEOFFS is the second installment of Kirk Pedersen’s sweeping photographic project titled Urban Asian Series. In keeping with his characteristically intuitive, yet acutely perceptive approach, Pedersen captures an entirely new series of serendipitous happenstances and fleeting moments. Fueled by a sagacious spirit of exploration and inquiry, TRADEOFFS turns its gaze to a dizzying state of information overload; signs, simulacra, semiotics all seem to push to the very edges of works, implying advertising’s aggressive horror vacui. Gleaming glass in vertiginous skyscrapers reflect the swirling vortex of a world inundated by image, employing mise en abyme to frightening new ends. Telephone wires criss-cross the skies, lending a bizarre compositional order, simultaneously implying an infinite nexus of networks. And yet, despite the overabundance of chaotic choice, of scurrying masses, of bustling humanity; the subjects in Pedersen’s works all seem strikingly alone.
With an essay by theatre and art critic James Scarborough who has published works in Apollo, Frieze, Art in America, Flash Art, art+text, New Art Examiner, Art Monthly, The Huffington Post, and Art Press, among many other publications.
About Kirk Pedersen
Kirk Pedersen is a Los Angeles based multidisciplinary artist whose work is at once expansive and detailed, revealing and poetic. Traveling to Hong Kong, Bangkok, Tokyo, Taipei, and Kuala Lumpur to capture what he calls “Urban Asia,” Pedersen examines the seemingly ordinary stuff of life- sidewalks, curbs, markets, alleys- and, through his eye for synchronicity, reveals new truths about the world around us.
Kirk Pedersen received his M.A. from San Francisco State University and his M.F.A. in painting from Claremont Graduate University. He has exhibited extensively at major galleries, art fairs and museums throughout the United States. Internationally, Pedersen’s works have been featured in Germany, Switzerland and China, including the Today Art Museum, Beijing and the Duolun Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai. Since 1997, he has served as professor of painting and drawing at the Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut, CA.
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