In his second solo exhibition at the gallery, Mikey Foster Estes presents new photographic works alongside selections of paintings and objects created by the artist’s late father, Beaver, from whom the exhibition takes its title. The exhibition also includes a collaborative video work from 2013 in which the artist, donning red high heels, builds a piece of furniture with his father in the garage.

The family home figures as a central focal point in Afterimages (2021), an ongoing series of photographic works. The images, made in various areas throughout the house, document its contents while also depicting the artist’s subject through what is left behind. In studying the house itself, he continues to consider the idea of the portrait as an absence.

This selection of images highlight in part some of the house’s idiosyncrasies, many of which were implemented by Beaver himself: stained glass windows, hand-painted wall designs, mosaics, and more. Most recently he had started to make paintings, a practice in which he was active up until his death in July 2020. A sampling of his self-taught oeuvre is displayed alongside the other works in the exhibition.

Daddy’s Boy (2013) is a split screen video that follows father and son as they each build a side of a small wooden stand. The action is playfully subverted by the introduction of high heel shoes, a gesture drawing contrast to gendered expectations of masculine identities. Both sides of the stand are assembled and finished differently, and the video concludes with the image of the two halves coming together.

Mikey Foster Estes is an artist whose practice is rooted in the everyday and spans performance, photography, sculpture, video, and writing. In addition to exhibiting locally, his work has been included in exhibitions in Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York. In 2020, he developed Living Room, a live-streamed performance for a series developed by nueBOX. His video, Private Rainbows, will be included in an upcoming exhibition this fall at Tempe Center for the Arts. In 2016, he attended the SOMA Summer international residency program in Mexico City. He holds an MFA from Hunter College, City University of New York, and a BFA from Arizona State University. He lives and works in Tempe, AZ.