XOXO

In 2005 Kottie Paloma rented an elevated beer and smoke stained room on a block above the remnants of several decades´ worth of American misgovernment and societal problems. Think of a neighborhood filled with fear, hate, homelessness, police brutality, gentrification, and personal economic collapses that all condense and manifest themselves in walking zombies at 6th and Market Streets of San Francisco in the years 2005-2009. Part Sci-Fi, Part failed American realism. During this time, Kottie navigated this gauntlet below his studio and deve- loped a working vocabulary of iconographic American characters (Superman, Ghosts, Cops, Jesus, Crack heads, Gangsters, and Girlfriends) that came together in irreverent juxtapositions generating tragically dark comedy that are strangely poetic, yet perverse. Sexual alienation, frustration, hysteria, political and cultural violence, dichoto- mies of good and evil, life and death unfold in an ongoing narrative that comprises Kottie Paloma´s studio practice of paintings, drawings, books, and sculptures.