Joe Goode: Nothing but the Blues

KOKI ARTS is pleased to present Nothing but the Blues, a solo exhibition by Joe Goode (1937–2025). This marks Goode’s third solo exhibition with the gallery and serves as a tribute to honor the artist on the first anniversary of his passing in March 2025. The exhibition will feature a series of eleven previously unseen small-scale paintings from Goode's studio. Dating from 2019, these works represent the latest evolution of his renowned "Ocean Blue" series.​

Throughout his career, Goode explored the concept of "seeing through things," masterfully blurring the line between representation and abstraction. He was known for translating natural phenomena into profound abstractions, a journey that led to the inception of his iconic "Ocean Blue" paintings in 1988. In the Nothing but the Blues paintings, although intimate in scale, the hints of recognizable forms, subtle gradations of his color palette, and visible brushstrokes invite viewers to reexamine their own perceptual boundaries. As the works represent water, space, and light, they evoke the immersive sensation of being submerged underwater—as if seeing through the deep blue ocean.​

JOE GOODE (1937–2025), originally from Oklahoma City, moved to Los Angeles in 1959 and attended Chouinard Art Institute until 1961. In 1962, his work was included along with artists such as Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Jim Dine, and Edward Ruscha in New Painting of Common Objects, the groundbreaking historical first museum exhibition of Pop Art in the US. He later also became a key figure in the Light and Space movement in Southern California. Throughout his career, Goode's work was exhibited in galleries and museums worldwide. Recent exhibitions have included solo exhibitions at the Honarkar Foundation (Laguna Beach, 2024), Cirrus Gallery (Los Angeles, 2023), KOKI ARTS (Tokyo, 2023), Texas Gallery (Houston, 2021), Michael Kohn Gallery (Los Angeles, 2021), Galerie Thomas Zander (Cologne, 2021), Leslie Sacks Gallery (Santa Monica, 2019), and Peter Blake Gallery (Laguna Beach, 2018). His most recent museum solo exhibition was held at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis in 2015. His previous exhibitions in Japan included a solo show at Nantenshi Gallery (1995), and a group show at the Museum of Modern Art, Osaka (1988). Goode's work can be found in many important museum collections, such as LACMA, MOCA, MoMA, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Menil Collection, among others.