A Man’s History As Passing Shadow On A Wall In John Sonsini’s Cowboy Stories & New Paintings

at Susanne Vielmetter, Los Angeles (through February 22)
Reviewed by Eve Wood

The iconic and often brutal mythology that informs images of the American West is unreliable at best, specifically as it relates to the larger-than-life stereotype of the cowboy. Forged in the fires of patriarchy, the familiarity of the gritty, rugged lone cowboy making his way on horseback across the prairie, persists to this day. He exemplifies the myth that has become synonymous with our image of American culture, yet this image is simplistic and problematic in that it privileges one culture over another and leaves no room for shared human experience.

Painting directly from life, John Sonsini’s Cowboy Stories and New Paintings reasserts the image of the cowboy in the guise of various young Hispanic men. These figures are strangely anachronistic, in that they derive from the Los Angeles landscape, both working and living in the sprawling cityscape. Yet these characters bring with them entire life histories, often carried literally in backpacks and suitcases. These histories seem to encompass important elements from their pasts that include clothes and trappings of cowboy lore as this small grouping of men pose directly facing the viewer and holding their cowboy hats, their expressions serene and confident yet also strangely misbegotten.