​Sullivan Goss is excited to announce an exhibition of meticulous Pop Realist paintings and prints by three of L.A.’s hottest young artists in the field: Robert Townsend,​Dave Lefner​, and Mary­Austin Klein​. Each artist works to achieve a startling realism in their own stubbornly difficult medium. Indeed, they are united by both their reverence for the mastery of lost technique as well as their interest in the way that the icons of America’s bygone consumer culture have achieved a kind of mythic status in the world’s imagination. Googie neon signs, AM/FM radios, matchbooks, motels, freeways, and cars that now carry the prefix “classic” are not presented ironically, but reverently. The craftsmanship of Townsend’s watercolors, Lefner’s reduction linocuts, and Klein’s finely resolved oils on Duralar speaks to both their obsession and adoration for vintage Americana. Their works are too laborious. They smack of love.

Robert Townsend is both a collector and artist of the ephemera and design objects of the 1930s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s. From antique shops to eBay, he scours the world for resonant icons with the right patina. Perfect condition is not so desirable. The textures and discolorations that signal the use and age of once utopian products both fascinate him as a collector and challenge him as an artist. These he renders larger than life in watercolor – that notoriously tricky medium – and in oil. Since his solo exhibition with Sullivan Goss in 2009, he has exhibited across the country at galleries, museums, and in art fairs. His work has become part of the Frederick R. Weisman and Getty collections.