Mary Bishop, June Gutman, Matt Lock, and L.W.D.

In psychology, the term “restless states” describes a condition of heightened internal tension and unease that emerges from within—a flicker of thought oscillating between impulse and reflection, clarity and confusion. This restlessness is not merely agitation; it is a generative force, an internal summoning that urges the body to surrender, to translate unease into form. Although the four artists featured in Restless States differ mightily in their visual languages, they share a common impulse to engage with a kind of existential unease that demands release, each navigating the currents of an inner anxiety that hovers between dreams and waking life, the half-seen and the fully formed.

The conceptual impetus for this exhibition began with the work of Mary Bishop (1914–1990), whose psychologically charged drawings were preserved by ‘the father of art therapy’ Edward Adamson and are generously on loan from the Adamson Collection/Wellcome Collection. In 1956, Bishop was admitted to Netherne Asylum (later renamed Netherne Hospital) in Surrey, England. There, she spent roughly three decades producing thousands of works under the care of Adamson, who established a painting and drawing studio at the Asylum and pioneered the use of inpatient artwork to aid in the diagnoses and treatment of individuals. The artist's prolific output underscores the power of the image as a site of self-expression, resistance, and survival. Her intimate, soulful drawings give voice to a lifetime of psychological suffering, institutional trauma, and existential angst that might otherwise have remained unseen or silenced.

Where Bishop’s work serves as a response to institutional surveillance and confinement, June Gutman actively subverts the clinical walls of the institution by using the canvas as a space for radical emotional attunement. Moving beyond the restrictive definitions of "mental illness" that shaped her early years, Gutman descends into the hidden chambers of her own mind to uncover fragile links buried within its folds. Her work is at once instinctual and sharply purposeful, grotesque and unexpectedly funny. By weaving together art-historical echoes, fragments of popular culture, and even encounters with extraterrestrial forces, she creates a visual language that refuses to be categorized by a diagnosis.

This preoccupation with the "otherworldly" as a proxy for internal distress continues in the work of Matt Lock. In his drawings, Lock’s existential frustrations materialize into alien forms that inhabit a dystopian space, where line becomes both an instrument of observation and a record of the artist’s own pessimistic discomfort. Seen through a disturbing matrix of mutated flesh and circuitry, Lock’s damaged mindscapes unfold through dense accumulations of anxious lines. There is a palpable tension in his hand: meticulous yet frayed, with a paranoia that feels both architectural and organic. In Lock’s universe, the present reality unravels to reveal a post-apocalyptic future, tracing the internal mechanics of a mind at odds with its environment.

While Lock finds his "restless state" in a future unraveling, L.W.D. (aka Little White Dog) uses art to reclaim time forever lost. Upon being released from prison in 2019, after decades of incarceration, L.W.D. began to transform his past through creative expression into a positive future — painting his life experiences, reconstructing his identity, and processing the emotional and psychological impact of prison. Growing up in Watts/Compton amid classic car and lowrider culture, the archetype of the car and its inherent movement became powerful metaphors for the artist, symbolizing hope, escape, and freedom. In his recent series, titled Downtown Babylon, the artist paints crowded streets, police surveillance, memory, resilience, and the tensions of urban life. He bridges personal narrative with broader societal critiques of urban inequality, creating work that resonates far beyond Los Angeles. His paintings affirmatively show that trauma, marginalization, and disruption don’t only produce scars—they can produce art that matters, testifies, and demands to be seen.

Ultimately, Restless States brings together four artists whose works remain records of an unsettled pursuit, evidencing the inner turbulence that drives them to question, reconsider, and recast. When the apparitions of the mind beckon to be released in form, the hand becomes primed for gesture even in the absence of clear direction. The resulting works are not fixed statements but living traces of thought made visible, each one revealing the tension, curiosity, and persistence that drive the artists onward.

June Gutman (b. 1995)
Track Down, 2025
pencil, colored pencil on paper
10 x 8 in. | 25 x 20 cm
Courtesy of Kishka Gallery & Library

L.W.D. (b. 1957)
Downtown Babylon, 2025
oil on canvas
55 x 79 x 2 in. | 139 x 200 x 5 cm

Matt Lock (b. 1984)
Subserviance to Killing Device, 2020
ink, pencil, and marker on paper
11 x 8½ in. | 27 x 21 cm