"I miss New York at night, but love California in the day," says Los Angeles-based artist Jeremy Blake, 30, whose video art -- mostly eye-popping animations of Modernist-style paintings with super-brainy, postmodern, theoretical underpinnings -- instantly catapulted him into art superstardom. He also wound up having crossover appeal, which led to his collaborations with P.T. Anderson on his film Punch-Drunk Love (he designed the visuals to accompany the film's credits) and a yet-to-be-released short, Blossoms in Blood. Blake also created the limited-edition, four-version cover for Beck's latest release, Sea Change. "I always said I would never use my work [commercially]," says Blake. "But conceptually, it was so tight it was okay. Beck and P.T. are so smart."
The artist, who has been working mostly with video but was originally trained as a painter, has recently gone back to the canvas, preparing for his show at Feigen Contemporary this fall. "It was hell," he says. "If you don't use your kung-fu, you lose it. The new work is a real surprise. It's like if Gerhard Richter loosened up on speed at the age of 21."
SARAH VALDEZ
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