A few weeks ago, I visited Ruthann gallery in Catskill. During the drive over, I listened to a lecture with the late Alan Watts, a self-declared “philosophical entertainer” who ironically spoke of inferno’s anguish in that very podcast: “The threat of hell is too big to think about,” he quipped in his classy British accent (and if you are not familiar with the mighty Watts, this is your moment). His sobering comment—a relevant encapsulation of so many extant horrors—set the tone for my encounter with “Party in Hell,” a group show on view through September 12 featuring mixed media artworks by seven artists who seem to respond to the obvious query: What is hell?
The irony of this show—considering Watts’s remark—is that it does make us think, and not about “hellish” things per say. Rather, this polite show inspires a kind of “anti-hell” reaction: it suggests that we seek a reasonable understanding of hell in whatever form it takes. The show also hints at a realm beyond our own, and Brian Wood’s Near Exit 5 (2006) it’s a stunning vision of swirling chaos in shades of blue, white and a touch of red (with a random foot amid the entropy) that spins into an obsidian dimension. His other painting, Heka (2024), is a colorful quasi-surrealist (and somewhat erotic) composition of a hybrid figure that appears to be melting into the fiery cosmos all around, acting as a kind of blueprint with respect to our impending passage—each of us will experience a mythical dissolution from this world to the next.
Nancy Davidson’s Hecate’s Winding Stick (2023) invokes the ancient Greek goddess associated with wizardry and witchcraft, also the guardian of boundaries (and a fitting complement to Wood’s interpretation of Heka, the ancient Egyptian personification of magic). This sculpture of a bony neon green stick resting on a black base suggests that Hecate is at a contemporary crossroads. She moves freely between the worlds of the living and the dead, and her gangly emblem of support remains steadfast for those who conjure the imagined influences of this life. Get Well (2024) by Pol Morton is a mixed-media painting featuring a post-surgical balloon in the shape of two hearts, hand-sewn sequin patches, and a KN95 mask worked into a bloody background. Two energetic rainbow-hued hands reach outward at the top and a pair of feet anchor the composition at the bottom while little nipple-like shapes pepper this expressionistic piece.
Four small cement and enamel artworks by J. Grabowski are installed together on a ledge, each of them a simple vignette, including the ominously titled GAME OVER (2026) and the image of an airplane, and UN-PLUG (2025) and the image of a computer and its detached power cable. Whit Harris’s Sweltering Head (2025) is a massive face on a sizzling beach with a watery blue horizon line above. Two oddities contribute to the strangeness of this scene: an extinguished cigarette butt near the hairline and a dead swallow in the sand. Two black ink works by Elena Sisto feature iconic female characters in dubious situations, including Olive Oil in Flood (2019) featuring this lovable lass in a boat as she maneuvers a deluge in the dark.
The exhibition culminates with Leigh Davis’s Elegies (for the Near, the Far, the Absent, the Future (2026), a 13-minute looped video that I watched in its entirety. Positioned on a white monitor cart and set against a custom black and white photo collage, this hodgepodge of non-sequiturs is an enjoyable fever-dream that includes arbitrary moments such as a someone wrapping a gift and a pool scene with a smoke cloud that pulls us into a void of weirdness. The most compelling segment of this work is a child’s voice speaking about death while a cake burns bright with candles: “This may be your last birthday” said in an adolescent tone is the refrain that haunts.
During my visit, I interacted with Ruthann co-founders Georgia Elrod (and her lovely mother) and Witts, who clarified that 10 percent of all proceeds from this show will go directly to the Columbia County Sanctuary Movement, an organization that supports immigrant communities. This commendable gesture brought the hell theme full circle for me. If hell is indeed “too big to think about” as declared by Watts, then this discreet “Party in Hell” is an excellent alternative: Let us be seduced into the damned festivities without ruining the fun.
