GOTHAM GOTHIC

Theresa Bloise, Alex Hutton, and Ben Cowan
On view: July 2nd – July 31st, 2022
Closing reception: July 30th, 4–7pm

Three moons, gates covered with greens and flowers, scenes of Brooklyn brownstones at nightfall in a quiet duet with a group of bats, comfortably ‘hanging on’ in their natural habitat. While balancing the borders of dreamscapes and nightmares, GOTHAM GOTHIC offers a celebration of painting — Alex Hutton’s impeccable brushwork, seemingly effortless and exact at the same time. Theresa Bloise’s mixtures of techniques and ever exciting painting experiments and Ben Cowan’s subtle color shifts, carefully executed cityscapes.

Ben Cowan’s paintings feature familiar Brooklyn sights cropped, collaged and simplified in order to capture a concentrated experience that refers to the interpersonal and supernatural. Wrought iron gates, stoops and architecture are the background in every glance of Brooklyn’s surroundings. Cowan uses these ordinary and accessible objects to anthropomorphize the narratives in his life. Pairing the inviting domestic architecture with firm boundaries of decorative gates, the paintings offer an invitation and denial. A deep space is implied but the depth is fragile. Color, sensuous surface, and familiar foliage entice; but, still a longing to enter remains.

The desired through-line of Alex Hutton’s work is a sensitivity to the interdependence that permeates the world. Focusing on the way in which we envision ourselves in relation to other living beings and how that positioning shifts overtime, mediated by new tools for seeing. Recent imagery comes from a fascination with the way animals move through a field, as they present a unique movement and sensibility in their relation to danger. Hutton is struck by their graceful way of dealing with vulnerability. On another level, our own anthropomorphizing of them is important to him as it seems to say as much about ourselves as our understanding of their behavior. Hutton often conceives of them in the work as a model for either personalities or some generic consciousness. Their capacity for camouflage also becomes a means of augmenting the figure-ground relationship in the work. Themes involving the continual reconceptualization of “nature” and the individual confronting the city have been fruitful areas of exploration.

Science that feels like science fiction inspires Theresa Bloise’s most recent paintings. Bloise uses small earthly objects as a reference, meteorite like slag stones and pebbles on the sidewalk. Collecting and arranging small objects to create a scene meant to inspire awe is a routine practice in the way she works. The work is intended to be read as both still life and landscape: microscopic and monumental, primordial and apocalyptic. While her compositions are well planned out, how she makes a painting is fairly improvisational. Each painting is made with a combination of techniques. This involves experimentation with spraying, pouring, masking and stenciling as well as playing with different materials such as gold or silver leaf.