We recently interviewed Joshua Petker, who explained the meaning of his enigmatic layered portraits, his integration of many art periods, as well as his love of the absurd. Petker’s show Drunk on the Moon is opening tonight in the Shooting Gallery‘s Project Space from 7-11 pm in our new location on 886 Geary Street. His new series features work that displays multiple images on top of one another, having an almost palimpsest effect, and the paintings retain his signature bright palette. Petker’s opening coincides with White Walls and the Shooting Gallery’s Ten Year Anniversary Group Show, which runs through April 6.

Drunk on the Moon
Shooting Gallery Project Space
886 Geary Street

Read more of the interview after the jump.

Some of your new work appears to layer as many as four faces over one another. What has inspired you to combine several seemingly different paintings in one?

I’m very interested in abstracting representational imagery. Using multiple layers allows me to do just that. Similar to one’s inherit ability to have multiple thoughts going on at any moment this process of image making allows me to have many different ideas going on at once in a work. I think of it similar to James Joyce’s stream of conscious writing process.

Your work has some lascivious and macabre themes depicted in a bright, rosy palette. How does contrasting these cheery colors with edgy content affect the darker nature of these themes?

I am interested in the absurd. As the content gets darker the works have gotten brighter.

There are pieces of your work that I’ve thought could be inspired by Matisse in color and line. From which art period do you draw the most inspiration?

I am very conscious of the history of painting and incorporate different elements of this history into my works. My work is inspired by many movements: Surrealism, German Romanticism, Impressionism, and Abstraction.

In your work “Two Figures,” the man bears a striking resemblance to Friedrich Nietzsche. If that’s him, does the suggestive figure represent how he contracted syphilis?

That’s funny. No, actually, the juxtaposition of the images is intended to be nothing but absurd. I have enjoyed Nietzsche a great deal but do not find his ideas sexy. Combining his commanding and weighted portrait with a cheap cheesy erotic image was interesting for me.