Jerrin Wagstaff is an artist based in Los Angeles, California. Wagstaff received his BFA from Brigham Young University and his MFA from California State University. Having lived in both Utah and California, his vibrant paintings explore how American identity has been shaped by the idealized American West. Wagstaff has worked with and exhibited in numerous Utah and California-based institutions, including the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, Another Year in LA, Nox Contemporary, Torrance Art Museum, Melissa Morgan Fine Art, San Diego Art Institute and more.  

Statement

American Landscapes endeavors to create a new version of the American West: a place that embraces contradictions. It is at once flat and expansive, light and dark, saturated and dull, beautiful and threatening, familiar and strange. In this body of work, Wagstaff references 19th century Romantic landscape paintings, which were used to composite and construct an idealized image of America through the lens of European traditions. Pieces such as Ultrascape 19 employ vibrant, saturated color, abstraction and unexpected shifts in an effort to draw the viewer into the spectacle of a reimagined American West.

Instagram @jerrin_wagstaff