Paumier /
Up, Down, Up, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A and Start

De Soto Gallery presented works by Brian Paumier, featuring prints and light boxes that combined photography with reworked 1980s video game graphics and custom motorcycle fabrications.

Paumier’s work addresses the mechanics of memory and nostalgia—how recollections are reconstructed over time and become iconic through repetition. His practice, both intercultural and interdisciplinary, weave deeply personal yet universal narratives, incorporating nontraditional materials that blurred the line between image and object.

The series linked 1980s pop culture with themes of military service, technology, entertainment, and religion. Paumier connected the era's arcade games to his own monomythic journey into the army and his subsequent spiritual quest for redemption. This exploration spoke to the lure of the exotic and the power of nostalgic transference. The exhibition title was inspired by the Konami Code, the fabled cheat code from the shooter game Contra NES, inadvertently recalled incorrectly.

Prominently mounted light boxes gleamed like revived relics, displaying images of toys and trinkets enshrined in game monitor bezels, framed with brightly colored, powder-coated aluminum. In another installation, a nearly life-size toy spaceman stood at attention on an adhesive photo print beneath an obscure vintage marquee labeled “Amigo.” Additionally, ultra-thin LED light panels featured portraits of cartoonish curios, plugged in and illuminated, neatly lined up like a row of artifacts from a digital age.

Brian Paumier (b. 1973, Oxnard, California) holds an MFA from ICP/Bard and a BFA from Art Center College of Design. His work is included in public and private collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 21c Museum Hotel in Durham, NC, and the Beth Rudin DeWoody collection.