Mark Grotjahn (born in Pasadena in 1968; lives and works in Los Angeles) is one of the best-known American painters of his generation. His varied body of work includes depictions of anthropomorphic plants and masks, as well as colorful abstract compositions in oil paint or crayon. After 1997, he also created numerous monochrome paintings. Grotjahn’s “Butterfly” and “Face” paintings are animated by a dynamic dialectic between gestural expression and formalist structure. The lavishly designed book Circus Circus presents selected paintings from Grotjahn’s new “Circus” series alongside bronze “Mask” sculptures. These ambitious, multicolored works combine the geometric rigor of the “Butterfly” series with the gestural execution of the “Face” pictures, in which prominent facial symbols emerge from flowing streams of color. Essays by Caroline K ding and Mark Prince analyze the “Circus” series in relation to painting traditions and examine its place in Grotjahn’s body of work.