Vacillating between cartoony visions of ecological traumas, hazy painterly incarnations, and graphically nostalgic vignettes, two concurrent exhibitions through March 17 featuring three artists on view at Turley Gallery in Hudson invoke realms of grotesque sweetness balanced by poesy. In the main space, “you think, you know” featuring paintings by Daniel Herwitt and Kevin Ford is a bipolar psychological workout of sorts while “Burgers for Breakfast” includes elegant, stylized works on paper by Mark Joshua Epstein.
With “you think, you know” we encounter a curious pairing of paintings by Herwitt and Ford. On the one hand, Herwitt’s richly orchestrated mixed-media artworks illustrate the entropy of our global “decline times vibe” through peculiar and entertaining compositions in golden hues that nearly pop off the wall. Herwitt is deliberate in his repositioning of ordinary objects to tell outrageous stories.
In Sunday’s Roast (2024), for example, a mushy yellow head with a runny nose sprouts from a sickly Earth and sucks on a straw that emerges from an angry little red can while two hot irons melt the top of this bodiless character and a bubbling teacup with worried eyes looks upward in a panic. Should we chuckle or wince at this caricature of pollutants? In other mixed media pieces such as GULP (2024), a cartoonish creature peers anxiously over a pot filled with red goo as a sleepy flower lurches downward into a slimy scene of strangeness crawling with Dr. Seuss-esque characters that defy definition. The madness of these scenes is both entertaining and haunting.
Where Herwitt’s art thrusts us into the environmental crisis of contemporary times with a fearful silliness, Ford’s dreamy painterly realms provide a metaphorical cloud on which to float away from worldly wreckage. With Ford’s art we enter a sublime state of tipsy wonder, where fuzzy paintings of chubby cats, neon flowers, and ancient vases cause a state of elated anesthesia. In the painting Bust of a Wrestler (2003), for example, the arousal of ambiguity provokes curiosity: is that an ancient Greek philosopher or an aging bearded hipster? In Picture Plane (2024), a set of wet ass cheeks appear pressed against a steamy glass. It is a delight to “fill in the blank” with Ford’s vague intrigues and intimacies.
A small side room at the back of the gallery always provides a pleasant coda to the main room, and this time a series of works on paper by Epstein are utterly charming. Finding inspiration from the baroque aesthetic of Italy during a summer sojourn in Rome, he creates tiny graphic environments filled to the brim. His use of acrylic and watercolor demonstrates a masterful painterly poise and versatility—get up close and feel the swoon.
Your Last Hopes for Your Future Self (2023), for example, is a gorgeous geometric work that could also double as an esoteric album cover, luxe wallpaper, or a stylish backdrop for a Wes Anderson film. With Easter Eggs for the Literati #2 (2024), Epstein takes us back in time with a retro flair while simultaneously catapulting us forward into the future of design.
Together these three artists offer vivid “worlds within worlds within worlds” that provide a stimulating rendezvous with joyful utopias gone wrong (Herwitt), hallucinatory dreamscapes (Ford), and nostalgic graphic treats to nourish one’s artistic soul (Epstein). The combination is that “you think, you know” what’s on the menu, but it’s “Burgers for Breakfast” in this topsy-turvy land of silly, soupy, and sexy make-believe.
