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Artist: David Leggett

Steve Turner presents Everyday Struggle, a solo exhibition by Los Angeles-based artist David Leggett featuring new paintings that continue the artist’s incorporation of pop culture, text, bright colors and soft materials to explore issues of race and class.

The exhibition title comes from a Biggie Smalls song from 1994 that addresses the daily struggles faced by many people in marginalized communities. These circumstances, which often result in poverty, violence and a life without opportunity, are vividly portrayed in the song and alluded to in Leggett’s work, as are the emotions, frustrations and desperation that result from the day-to-day grind.

One of Leggett’s paintings amplifies on the theme of Small’s song by combining the spray-painted text, “Everyday Struggle” with a Disney image of Br’er Rabbit fighting the Tar-Baby. In the original Uncle Remus story, Br’er Fox made a doll out of tar and turpentine to trap Br’er Rabbit. The more Br’er Rabbit fights the Tar-Baby, the more entangled he becomes, illustrating the frustration—and often, the futility—of engaging with problematic situations.

David Leggett (born 1980) earned a BFA at Savannah College of Art and Design (2003) and an MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2007) before attending Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2010). He has had solo exhibitions at Anthony Gallery, Chicago (2021); Aspect / Ratio, Chicago (2021); Steve Turner, Los Angeles (2020 & 2021); Shane Campbell Gallery, Chicago (2017 & 2019) and his work has been included in group exhibitions at Zidoun & Bossuyt Gallery, Luxembourg; James Fuentes Gallery, New York; Kunstverein Langenhagen, Germany and the Contemporary Art Museum, Raleigh, North Carolina. This is his third solo exhibition at Steve Turner.