Up for the Down Stroke is the title of a new exhibition of paintings by artist David Leggett. The exhibition, which is on view at 65GRAND in Chicago, makes use of humorous yet irreverent imagery and text that confronts everyday issues of race, class, sexuality and religion. While the paintings hardly offer any solution to these issues, they do provide a tension between humor and disgust that demands engagement from the viewer. Leggett’s social observations of the commonplace shed light on cultural byproducts such as lyrics from rap songs and contemporary and historical cartoons to reveal certain absurdities in our daily lives which often are so widely accepted that they become rarely examined.

The Chicago-based artist was born in Massachusetts and is a graduate of Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Up for the Down Stroke marks the first solo exhibition for the artist, who recently completed group shows at the Hyde Part Art Center and the Zolla Lieberman Gallery, both in Chicago.