Hot Off the Presses: Joshua Maupin's Latest Print Drop Blooms with Emotion - A Preview of the June 17th Drop

On June 17th, ever-evolving Texas-born, Brooklyn-based visual artist Joshua Maupin will drop a new series of prints. Maupin, born in 1985, has long experienced life from the vantage point of a painter of modern mythologies, illustrating the surreal realm of contemporary existence.

Maupin is a painter; the vibrant, frenetic spaces in his work depict the outlandish luminosity of brightly lit domestic interiors, animated figures that seem to be in motion, all while balancing a sense of craze with ultimate clarity.

What makes this particular drop exciting is the alignment among the pieces. A cohesive, yet heterogeneous body of work that captures an important chapter, perhaps fit for Maupin's move from spray-paint rebel artist to developing a more grounded and dignified multi-faceted story of color and shape, appropriately, the pieces showcased are paintings that seem to be fluorescent tableaus - part comic, part dream and wholly original.

"Friendly Flowers", is such an example. A maximalist still life with an assortment of cartoon-like flowers spreading out before the viewer, an explosion of paint on canvas - not merely a vase on a table - think of that vase as a vase in consideration of memory and interiority where what is familiar can feel foreign. The flowers tell a story, one of calm and stillness with subtle touches of domestic surrealism - on the table in the center of the painting and across the painted surface this story is grounded in perspective shifting uncomfortably among the postmodern space with changing and perceivable hues, textures and surfaces being changed by color dominance. The background features two red hues shifting above a red doorway (perhaps a door always unopened by some unseen occupant) that may be feeding the mystery - a mystery fit for an artist whose life and practice is continually moving and evolving.

Contrast that with “Existential Studio”, Maupin is seated inside his vibrant and chaotic painter's studio surrounded in all directions by a colorful explosion of creation, its material remains to be sorted and returned to a state of order - sitting alone, but in productive solitude.

And then there’s "Giddy Up Baby Let’s Ride This Life", a dynamic current of motion and identity. A rider gallops on a horse, their visage blurred in sheer comic-book velocity. Features overlap, and a looping rope evokes themes of identity fragmentation, rampant urgency, and the jubilant messiness of contemporary living—a masterful summation of Maupin's larger themes.

In "Let the Light Take Us", he turns the banal into the mythic one more. An explosion of flowers and organic geometries, subdued yet buoyant permanent marks on water color, layered hints of metaphysical language and transformation. It dances between sacred and light-hearted. This registers Maupin's consummate skill at building meaning beneath mirth.

These are not just prints—they're vehicles. They are not just the clever invitation into Maupin's idiosyncratic world view, a cocktail of Texan grit, New York grit, and straight imaginative elation. His compositions blend flat, saturated color planes, with effective line-work that places the observer in present, and prismatic. While the cartoonish elements existed within the images, it doesn't detract from the emotional content—it enhances it. They are not just visual gags, rather visual philosophies.

This June 17th.