Debuting at 50 Cocoanut Row in Palm Beach and at both 40 Albemarle Street and 22 Old Bond Street in London, this exhibition features new paintings and works on paper that expand upon Mesler’s signature motifs such as banana leaves to include pool floats, beach balls, and disco lights. With this series, the artist also reflects on the COVID-19 pandemic crisis—evoking fire and water to symbolize this global calamity and shared sense of isolation. Mesler combines such imagery with lyrics from the mixtapes of his adolescence, emblazoning words from unifying and celebratory ‘80s songs across his compositions. Joel Mesler: Pool Party converts the artist’s private suffering into a universal language of hope and survival.

In single compositions, diptychs, and triptychs, Mesler evokes the ‘80s era—winking at art historical forebearers and cultural touchstones with his carefully chosen symbols and texts. The tropical flora and fauna that flourish in these works bring to mind the imagined jungles of Paul Gauguin and Henri Rousseau while also summoning the recognizable “Martinique” patterned wallpaper of the Beverly Hills Hotel in California. The phrases that materialize in the artist’s compositions are often inspired by ‘80s pop songs. Rendering letters as mylar balloons or water droplets, Mesler spells out lyrics from tunes including the 1985 anthem “We Are the World” (co- written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie, and recorded by the supergroup USA for Africa). The inviting surface of a cerulean swimming pool in examples from this series pays homage to the figurative scenes of David Hockney and the abstract expanses of Brice Marden, even while populated with the playful pool floats of Mesler’s own early life.

At times, Mesler’s allusions to water and fire seem lighthearted; at other times, they feel almost apocalyptic or diluvial. Indeed, Joel Mesler: Pool Party conjures the duality of the 1980s, a moment defined as much by prosperity as by precarity. Surfacing in these paintings and works on paper are Mesler’s diverging memories of his youth: some sun-soaked and blissful moments, replete with rest and revelry; some shadowy and somber episodes, tinged with his parents’ divorce and other domestic hardships. Drawing together the past and the present, Mesler also gestures forward in time to the seclusion, fear, and grief that the pandemic precipitated, reframing this contemporary reality with his outlook on humanity’s capacity for renewal and rebirth.

The pictorial, emotional, and thematic dichotomies that Mesler probes with his new works are literalized in the unique structure of the exhibition, which will open concurrently in two continents. The artist created compositions that mirror one another, dividing them between LGDR’s spaces in Palm Beach and London. Two separate works sharing a background, a text, or a form will be on view across the Atlantic Ocean from each other. This presentational approach echoes the bittersweet nature of childhood—an experience that is collective yet individual, remote yet intimate. Joel Mesler: Pool Party is both a raucous celebration of Californian life and a poignant meditation on the growing pains that continue to define us.

Installation view, Joel Mesler: Pool Party, LGDR Palm Beach 2022. Photo: Silvia Ros