Andrew Sim: a pink horse with a rainbow and stars: 703 N Western Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90029

Anton Kern Gallery, New York, and The Modern Institute, Glasgow, are pleased to announce a pink horse with a rainbow and stars: Andrew Sim’s first solo exhibition in Los Angeles. We look forward to welcoming you at 703 North Western Avenue for this LA Art Week special presentation, on view daily from February 18th – 23rd. Please join us for the opening reception on Tuesday, February 18th, from 5 – 8pm. 

For their LA debut, the New York-based Scottish artist has created a new body of pan pastel works representative of their signature motifs, including: pink horses, rainbow-colored monkey puzzle trees, yuccas, birds in flight, sasquatches, and a hairless werewolf. Through their expressive postures and otherworldly glow, Sim’s subjects become vessels through which to convey feelings of vulnerability, growth, and affirmation. The artist pulls their repertoire of motifs from an unconscious place inhabited by dream images, classic archetypes, and real life sightings that have gained psychological significance through repeated encounters. Through the process of externalizing these images as artworks that operate in the physical realm, connections to the artist’s evolving gender presentation and desire for queer placemaking reveal themselves. 

It is only apparent to Sim after-the-fact that progressions in their practice coincide with landmarks in their personal narrative. Over the course of the past year in the studio, winged animals have come to the fore, paralleling Sim’s constant travel for projects between London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and New York; plants are thriving and find themselves encircled by tulips, corresponding to the artist’s immersion in queer nightlife; stars and rainbows are afterimages of the LED-lit urban environment. While being aware of these narratives is informative, there is no prescriptive reading of the works. For Sim, successful motifs are both relatable in their encoded queerness, while also being open-ended enough for anyone to attach their own meaning to. 

Open 11am - 6pm daily from February 19 - 23.