Steve Turner is pleased to present I Was Tempted To Throw My Phone In The River, a solo exhibition by New York-based Marcus Leslie Singleton that features paintings which depict life’s routine moments–fishing, driving a car, having a conversation, smoking a cigarette or just hanging out. As a group, they represent Singleton’s appreciation of and longing for the return of face to face interactions. His painting style, refined through trial and error over the last decade, has congealed into a recognizable visual language of simplified figures and forms in contrasting colors painted with lively brushstrokes. He conveys his life, his inner spirit, his imagination, his longings and his fears.

According to Singleton, with these works he aims to convey the preciousness of life by celebrating Black life, culture, music, folklore, religion and tradition. “I have tried to produce a language that captures our deepest essence, one that for a large part of our history has been misunderstood. As a Black man in this country, I feel obligated to say that we are real people and that the souls of Black folks must be better recognized, by us and by others. I hope that my paintings can contribute in a way so that people from all walks of life will connect and empathize, not driven by guilt or shame, but by truthfulness and honesty.”

Marcus Leslie Singleton (born 1990, Seattle) is a self-taught artist who moved from Seattle to New York in 2013 to develop his studio practice. He has had solo exhibitions at Medium Tings, Brooklyn (2018); Turn Gallery, New York (2019) and Journal Gallery, New York (2020). This is his first exhibition with Steve Turner, Los Angeles.