There are two sides to every story, according to the old saying, and Nathan Kostechko and Joshua Spencer have joined forces to investigate different narrative perspectives within a single idea in a short-lived show at Slow Culture, Los Angeles.
Kostechko, an artist and illustrator, and Spencer, a photographer, have created a series of works which simultaneously examine the relationship between the two viewpoints of the collaborators, and between the viewer and the works themselves.
Two Sides to Every Story explores the collapse of a relationship, and opines that trying to make sense of another’s motivations or actions in such a situation will only lead to more unhappiness. Better, they suggest, to let it go in the hope that love will return of its own free will, or be gone forever. Kostechko brings to the mix a distinct visual style forged from a young age in a tattoo parlour in San Clemente, California. His embellishments onto the prints of fellow San Clemente resident Spencer bring a tattooist’s fondness for the intertwining of beauty and death, as seen in the collection’s lead image in which the skeletal symbol of mortality stands proprietorially at the woman’s shoulder.
The exhibition is a fleeting affair, burning brightly for between 7pm and 10pm on 19 September.
