Jim Isermann: Wrapture

Miles McEnery Gallery, in collaboration with The Pacific Design Center Design Gallery (PDC), presents Wrapture, a survey of Jim Isermann’s vinyl decal and painting work from 1986 to present.

The exhibition will be on view at The PDC through June 29, 2024, open to the public Tuesday through Saturday from 10:00am to 6:00pm.

A reception celebrating the artist, coinciding with Pride Week will be held on Thursday May 30, 2024 from 3:00pm to 7:00pm. 

Copies of the artist’s monograph are available online and in-person.

Jim Isermann

"The domestic heart of Isermann’s design-oriented paintings, sculptures, and installations beats in ways not always immediately evident but nonetheless essential to the art’s success. Sometimes it sneaks up when least expected." —Christopher Knight

Artwork by Jim Isermann
Interview by John Burtle
Essay by Christopher Knight

A comprehensive monograph spanning the forty-year career of Palm Springs–based, queer artist Jim Isermann (born 1955), this title shows the artist’s first twenty years of extensive, chronological research of postwar art and design filtered through popular culture and consumerism, followed by twenty years of site-specific public projects and a studio practice of labor-intensive painting, sculpture, and the occasional product design project.

In 1980, there were no guidebooks to California design or what we now call Midcentury Modern. Isermann constructed his own timeline, object by object, from thrift stores, flea markets and swap meets, making bodies of work that included latch hook rugs paired with painting, stained glass window panels, and handsewn fabric wall hangings. By 1999, Isermann had his first computer, and so began the second twenty years of his career, with complex digitally designed patterns that found their form in commercially manufactured modules. Isermann continues to be inspired by the unpredictable, serendipitous moments that breathe life into his work.