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To spend 10 years in one place is a relationship as meaningful as any other. Maybe more meaningful. There\u2019s a level of grace and acceptance the space offers to its inhabitant over time, allowing them to shift and mutate without judgment. The space says, \u201cDo you. I\u2019m here. I see you.\u201d Artist Kohshin Finley<\/a>\u2019s work exists in the context of relationships \u2014 with art history, with his friends and family, with past versions of himself \u2014 and the studio he\u2019s been doing this work in for nearly a decade feels like a container for them all, a reflection and protection of his different periods as an artist. <\/p>\n The space floats above a sea of tourists in Hollywood buying plastic Oscar statuettes at souvenir shops, but you wouldn\u2019t know it by how quiet it gets up there. Its west-facing windows diffuse the room with a coat of hazy light. It used to be a hotel rumored to have ties to Clark Gable, and all of the 100-year-old architectural details are original. \u201cIt\u2019s another thing connecting me to certain histories in L.A.,\u201d Finley says. \u201cI\u2019m connecting to some sphere or energy that is flowing.\u201d<\/p>\n Walking in on a hot Tuesday afternoon, I felt their presence immediately \u2014 the pieces taking up the most physical and spiritual real estate in the studio. They were staring back at me. They were at my feet, inscribed with nearly invisible poetry. They were mid-sentence. They were beckoning: Come here, come closer, stay longer, there\u2019s so much to see. Finley was in the process of finishing the work for his first solo show in L.A., called \u201cStill Life,\u201d<\/a> opening at Jeffrey Deitch on Nov. 8. It\u2019s a combination of the large-scale oil portraiture Finley\u2019s become so known for, depicting a collection of faces close to him and close to L.A., plus his ceramic vessels and poetry. The pieces are framed together in custom wooden wall hangings made in collaboration with woodworker Lucas Raynaud<\/a> \u2014 which range from straightforward to more complex compositions \u2014 putting the earthenware and portraits in close conversation with each other.<\/p>\n Near the window was a portrait of Lionel Boyce<\/a>, one of the actors in \u201cThe Bear.\u201d There was one of designer Chris Gibbs<\/a> deep in conversation. Artist Diana Yesenia Alvarado<\/a> was squatting in the studio with a layer of sunlight blanketing her hair. Artists Mario Ayala<\/a> and Mia Carucci <\/a>were captured together, hanging across the wall from singer Kelsey Lu<\/a>, barefoot with black toenail polish on. The portrait of Finley\u2019s wife, Cameron Washington, was perched in the southwest corner, looking down on the space like a kind of patron saint of all the portraits, over a dozen total. <\/p>\n Kohshin wears a Comme Des Gar\u00e7ons Homme Plus blazer and pants, a Hollywood Ranch Market scarf and his own jewelry.<\/p>\n All of the subjects are Finley\u2019s friends or collaborators and many of them \u2014 if you are making art in L.A. or paying attention to who is making art in L.A. \u2014 are faces you\u2019ll recognize. In Finley\u2019s portraits, subjects are depicted with an openness that comes from knowing and loving the person staring back at them. The armor comes down. The body language relaxes.<\/p>\n Looking at some of the pieces in the walnut frames, the word \u201caltar\u201d easily comes to mind. When seen all together, the works feel like they\u2019re honoring someone or something. Both the paintings and the earthenware are scribbled with an illegible stream of consciousness poetry that Finley is channeling while making the work \u2014 often only visible in texture when the light hits right. \u201cI\u2019m thinking about these words and what that feeling translates to more than what it reads like,\u201d he says of this part of his process. \u201cWriting is a way of marking existence. For me to have that as a thumbprint foundation to pretty much everything that I do is like: Before anything else, someone was here.\u201d<\/p>\n They are altars, yes. But they\u2019re also something closer and more tangible. \u201cI want to humanize the people on the paintings because you could see them around the corner. Some of these people, you know exactly who they are. It\u2019s not using them as a placeholder for anybody. No. It\u2019s like, I\u2019m specifically painting Dee Alvarado.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cIn Her Light,\u201d a piece showing in Kohshin Finley\u2019s solo show, \u201cStill Life,\u201d at Jeffrey Deitch.<\/p>\n (Copyright: Kohshin Finley; photo: Never Nothing Studio; courtesy of the artist and Jeffrey Deitch)<\/p>\n Finley compares these pieces to a windowsill \u2014 a look into what these subjects are like when the defenses dissolve, into their relationship with Finley, into whatever conversation led them to this point. Initially, he was thinking of this body of work in terms of domesticity. The paintings would capture people in their homes and the ceramic vessels, as a metaphor for himself as an artist in service of his subject, would be serving ware \u2014 plates, cups, bowls, bottles. He wanted it to feel like everyday moments with the people he knows and loves. \u201cThey\u2019re a way to frame, to honor, to see,\u201d Finley says of the work. \u201cThat\u2019s where the name of the show, \u2018Still Life,\u2019 comes from: \u2018Let me hold you for a second, let me bring you down so you can take some time.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Finley has a sage-like quality. You can tell he\u2019s thought about this work for a long time, takes his responsibility as what he calls \u201ca vessel for the art\u201d seriously, understands how to articulate it for us regular people. He finds God in the details too \u2014 in his work, in the beauty he reaches for every day. Today, for instance, he\u2019s wearing an oxford shirt embroidered with his initials in Olde English, a vintage silk tie tucked back into the shirt midway \u2014 a styling point seen in Saint Laurent\u2019s spring\/summer 2026 men\u2019s show<\/a>. He has two fashion designer parents who named him after Kohshin Satoh, the cult Japanese designer known for dressing artists, and who once held a fashion show<\/a> at iconic New York nightclub the Tunnel, where Miles Davis and Andy Warhol modeled.<\/p>\n You get the sense when talking to Finley that he has something to teach. If he looks and sounds like an art professor it\u2019s because he is, having recently started working at his alma mater, Otis College of Art and Design \u2014 usually in Comme des Gar\u00e7ons, no less.<\/p>\n \u201cAs The River Flows,\u201d a piece showing in Kohshin Finley\u2019s solo show, \u201cStill Life,\u201d at Jeffrey Deitch.<\/p>\n (Copyright: Kohshin Finley; photo: Never Nothing Studio; courtesy of the artist and Jeffrey Deitch)<\/p>\n \u201cOnto You,\u201d from Kohshin Finley\u2019s solo show, \u201cStill Life,\u201d at Jeffrey Deitch.<\/p>\n (Copyright: Kohshin Finley; photo: Never Nothing Studio; courtesy of the artist and Jeffrey Deitch)<\/p>\n \u201cReunion,\u201d from Kohshin Finley\u2019s solo show, \u201cStill Life,\u201d at Jeffrey Deitch.<\/p>\n (Copyright: Kohshin Finley; photo: Never Nothing Studio; courtesy of the artist and Jeffrey Deitch)<\/p>\n Kohshin wears a vintage tie, a Comme des Gar\u00e7ons Homme Plus blazer, Frame pants, Alexander McQueen shoes and his own jewelry.<\/p>\n To learn that this is Finley\u2019s first L.A. show, a city he\u2019s from, and where he and his family have such deep artistic roots and an imprint<\/a>, feels like some cosmic oversight. His work is part of the permanent collections at the Hammer Museum and LACMA, and he\u2019s had solo exhibitions at Barbati Gallery in Venice, Italy, and at Various Small Fires in Dallas. He\u2019s been in countless group shows, including with Jeffrey Deitch, such as \u201cShattered Glass,\u201d<\/a> curated by AJ Girard and Melahn Frierson. But showing solo in his hometown is a different thing. It was his first goal when he decided he wanted to become a fine artist, one he pursued intensely for a while. \u201cI fought really hard for a long time to get one,\u201d he acknowledges. \u201cMy fighting for it also drove me away from it.\u201d Finley got some offers over the years, but the timing or place didn\u2019t feel right. And it was in the time that followed when he feels that he opened himself up to his practice. <\/p>\n Finley\u2019s wife gifted him ceramics lessons during the pandemic, an offering that would change the course of his work. Through ceramics, Finley felt grounded into another artistic lineage, to himself and his ancestors. It now makes up an integral part of the show. He fired the pieces with Altadena ceramist Jotham Hung<\/a>, fully immersing himself in the medium over the last few years. <\/p>\n \u201cI feel the most clear about myself and my purpose as an artist than I\u2019ve ever felt,\u201d Finley says. \u201cIf I had had it earlier in my career, it would have been great, but it would be exponentially different than what it is going to be now.\u201d<\/p>\n What you can see at the Deitch show, running through Jan. 17, is an artist contextualizing the people he loves within art history, while preserving their legacies for the record. In Finley\u2019s mind, this work is the connective tissue between so many different types of lineages, both artistic and familial. In this way, a moment between friends can reverberate through time, space and viewer. \u201cTo be able to use this show as a reference of a very dear memory of time spent with my friends and my community and to be able to build that moment with them so that we can all be seen, that\u2019s everything,\u201d he says. \u201cThat\u2019s the truest thing I could say about it.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
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