Xavier Hufkens, Brussels, is hosting an exhibition of a new series of paintings by New York-based artist Jonathan Horowitz titled “Leftover Paint Abstractions.”In making the work, Horowitz diverts the flow of his own and fellow artists’ leftover paint from drains and landfills to panels stretched with coarse, raw linen. The resulting paintings are suggestive of both cosmic, infinite space and a dystopian, contaminated earth. Additional works in the exhibition reference earlier, signature painting projects of Horowitz’s, employing a different kind of ‘recycling.’ In concert with “Leftover Paint Abstractions,” these works explore themes of personal identity and its dissolution in a time of cultural and political crisis.“Leftover Paint Abstractions” are made from hundreds of layers of paint, built up over time in splattered dots and drips. From a distance, optical melding creates a field of color. On closer view, a dense weave of hundreds of thousands of dots becomes visible, revealing a methodology that owes as much to Pointillism as Abstract Expressionism. In addition to its optical quality, the accumulated paint forms a highly textured surface, like an otherworldly, mountainous terrain. This ‘natural’ world contrasts with the naturalness of the coarse, raw linen underneath the paint, still visible on the sides of the stretchers.Another work in the show — “Coke/Pepsi (155,172 Cans)” is from an earlier series of Horowitz’s of images of Coke and Pepsi cans printed on vinyl. Coke and Pepsi represent the binary decision-making that underpins both capitalism and the American political system (red and blue are the colors which symbolize the two US political parties). Here, the cans have been miniaturized, creating a vast, random field of undulating purple. A computer algorithm has determined the order of the cans, and as such, the painting acts as a machine generated correlate to the “Leftover Paint Abstractions.”The exhibition is on view through April 14, 2018, at Xavier Hufkens, 6 rue St-Georges, St-Jorisstraat, Brussels, Belgium.For details, visit: http://admin.blouinartinfo.com/galleryguide/xavier-hufkens/overviewClick on the slideshow for a sneak peek at the exhibition.
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