Artist Scott Listfield's brilliant solo exhibition, "In Search Of…" is currently on view at Thinkspace Projects in Los Angeles, California. Known for his long-running series of narrative paintings featuring his trademark Astronaut protagonist, Listfield once again delivers a biting, dystopian vision of our near future.

This is a more introspective series than most of my recent work. I've titled it “In Search Of...” because it occurred to me, throughout the many years I've been making paintings in this series, that the astronaut is always looking AT something. But what is the astronaut looking FOR? What am I looking for? What are any of us looking for?

Does this show solve any of those great mysteries? I'm not sure that it does. But I've begun asking the questions and I've made these paintings deliberately more open ended, more minimal, more searching. I've been thinking a lot about how we form memories. How the fundamental events from our life get packaged and preserved in our mind. Literally forming the links we construct the idea of ourself out of. Looking backwards at these landmarks and wondering what they make us. Whether they present a path forward. Whether we followed them with meaning or purpose or whether we're just stumbling through life somewhat at random The person we are. A book of memories we've chosen to keep.

If this sounds a little vague, you're right. It is. I'm searching for something. Like my astronaut. Meaning? Maybe. Purpose? Definitely. Something which tells me about the life I've lead? Maybe that too. I've set myself off on this path a long time ago, and I'm pausing for the first time in a while to look around and wonder where I've gone, and what it is that I'm searching for.

-Scott Listfield