John Birtle (b. 1985, Long Beach) brings a bold and evolving exploration of authorship, images, and collectivity to his art. Working across drawing, sculpture, and installation, he reimagines everyday objects, highlighting both their utilitarian and aesthetic qualities, revealing how they connect people in unexpected ways. More is More, his first solo museum exhibition, restages an installation first conceived in his studio. In it, Birtle combines drawings, artist books, and sculptures like puzzles, kaleidoscopes, and dice to create a dynamic environment that fosters connection among viewers.

Known for his intricate rubber stamp drawings—dense, dazzling compositions that evoke endless flower fields or overflowing bubble baths—Birtle underscores questions of authorship embedded in the repeated gesture of each individual stamp. His practice probes the networks through which images like rubber stamps or puzzles circulate, tracing how images and objects accrue meaning and value over time. In doing so, his work challenges the hierarchies that determine what counts as “real art” and what is relegated to the margins as craft, too queer, too camp, and ultimately, too much.

This sense of dynamism runs throughout his practice, allowing Birtle to index the ways individuality blurs into plurality, shaping both our sense of self and our collective experience. With a nod to feminist and queer legacies of the Pattern & Decoration movement, he infuses his objects with playfulness, humor, and an earnest invitation to engage with the work—and with one another. In this way, his tactile approach not only unsettles the heightened sensitivities often found in museums but also reimagines the very systems through which art is valued, used, and shared.