We Lock Eyes Over a Bin of Discounted Top Ramen Outside Closeout Heaven, and the World – This Sick, Twisted, Beautiful Fucked up World- Utterly Stops. The Yelling Man, the Wafting Smell of Rotting Shrimp, the Hot Wet Air, the Shredded Tarp Blowing in the Tree, the Blood Soaking Into the Sidewalk-Grave, the Existential Misery of the Dreadlocked Cat- It All Stops. And We Begin., 2019. Acrylic and sand on canvas, Diameter 42 inches, Diameter 106 cm
You, With Your Stolen Acoustic Guitar and Well-Worn Patchwork Corduroy Vest; Me With My Balenciaga Unicycle and Lofty Ambitions; My Ethically Non-Monogomous Partner Visiting From Phoenix With His Linen Pants and Heirloom Tambourine; Your Unethically Monogomous Partner With Her Dead Eyes and Cambodian Flute; Her Cousin and His Dewey Skin, Astrological Hand Tattoos and Palpable Maladjustment Issues. There We Were., 2019. Acrylic and glass bead gel on canvas over panel, 20 x 24 inches, 51 x 61 cm
And. The Thing. The Thing That Brought Us All Here to Closeout Heaven. The Thing That We Have on Our Persons at All Times, for Some as a Matter of Principle and Others a Matter of Safety. This Thing That Led Us Together, and Would Eventually Tear Us Violently, Irreversibly Apart – a Discontinued Mini Bekeychained Bottle of Extra Virgin Coconut Oil Discounted From $4.99 to $3.99 on Weekdays, Which, Now Dangling Prominently From Our Respective Septum Piercings, Glints in the Blinding Light of Our Newly Shared Aura., 2019. Acrylic and glass bead gel on canvas, Diameter 72 inches, Diameter 183 cm
The Five of Us All Somehow, Impossibly, Lock Together in a Tangled Web of Sustained, Boundaryless Eye Contact While Our Heartbeats Synchronize and Our Breath Merges Into One Long, Slow, Shared Gasp as We Understand… We Are One. We Each Take a Packet of Ramen, Tear the Wrapper off With Our Teeth and Crush the Bricks in Our Hands, Letting the Pieces Tumble Through Our Fingers Like the Scraps of Time and Space Falling Away Around Us, as If to Say, There but by the Grace of Our All-Encompassing Psychic Connection Go We. Mitchell Solieri and the Easy Rollers Are Formed., 2019. Acrylic and glass bead gel on canvas over panel, 48 x 60 inches, 122 x 152 cm
That Was 1996. If You Had Told Me That Over the Course of the Next 30 Years I Would Become Inextricably Wrapped up in a Hapless Cult Supported by a Complex Multilevel Marketing Scheme Designed to Promote and Circulate Solieri’s Self-Published Book (More of a Pamphlet, and Later an E-Book), “The Whiteness of Cauliflower: A Bespoke Guide to the Arian Race,” I Would Have Called You Crazy. But, That’s Exactly What Happened., 2019. Acrylic and glass bead gel on canvas over panel, 24 x 20 inches, 61 x 51 cm
The Book, Featuring a Foreword by Rand Paul’s Former Babysitter, Was a Scattered Attempt to Assert the Superiority of the “White Race” by Citing Their Cultural Innovations During the 21st Century. The Midwestern Tradition of Styling Cupcakes and Cheese Balls Into Small Footballs Was Lauded, as Were Capris, and Nostalgic Civil-War Era Fetish Music Like Mumford and Sons. He Also Credited Whites With Inventing the Ubiquitous Suburban Banh Mi Taco, Though Aside From the Callous Efficiency of Fast-Fusion, in Its Violent Practice of Killing Two Beautiful, “Ethnic” Birds With One Plymouth Rock, This Attribution Seemed Wholly Misguided. But, I Digress. There Were More Glaring Fallacies., 2019. Acrylic and sand on canvas, 60 x 60 inches, 152 x 152 cm
Solieri Asserted, for Example, That Kid Rock Invented Rock and Roll in 1998 With the Release of His Hit Album “Devil Without a Cause.” Patently False on Premise, at Minimum the Idea Even Managed to Overlook Rock’s Earlier Albums “Early Mornin’ Stoned PIMP” (1996), “The Polyfuze Method” (1993), and “Grits Sandwiches for Breakfast” (1990). Though, to Be Fair, These Were More Rap-Oriented. A Separate Issue. He Also Suggested That Peanut Butter, Widely Known to Have Been Invented by Marcellus Gilmore Edson in 1884, Was in Fact Invented by Ed Koch in 1992, Though He Cited No Evidence to Support This., 2019. Acrylic and glass bead gel on canvas over panel, 60 x 60 inches, 152 x 152 cm
It’s Hard to Say If Mitchell Solieri and the Easy Rollers the Cult or Mitchell Solieri and the Easy Rollers the Band Came First. In Truth, They Were Inextricably Linked; As Incestuously Intertwined as the Members Ourselves. By 2004 We Had Fifteen Children Between the Five of Us, Most of Them Fathered by Solieri. Baby Arugula, Baby Kale, Empathy, Carafe, Quinoa-Casserole, Meritocracy, Ambien, Broth, Paleo-Enron, Facade, Verizon, Rod Zombie, Asiago, Hugh Saturation Lightness, and Brodhi Would All Eventually Become Cops., 2019. Acrylic and glass bead gel on canvas, 78 x 56 inches, 198 x 142 cm
In Addition to Their Getting Septum Piercings at Birth, Solieri Insisted That Until Age 14 The Children All Wear Beige Drop-Crotch Sweatpants When in Public, Which We Were Tasked With Fashioning Ourselves as the Modern Version Didn’t yet Exist. Solieri Would Eventually Take Credit for the Invention in His Book, and in 2013 Attempted to Collect Damages for Copyright Infringement by Sueing the Fashion Retailer Pants Pantry on Judge Mathis. The Episode Famously Derailed When Judge Mathis Became Aware of the Premise of Solieri’s Book, and Pinned Him up Against the Bench, Yelling “You Don’t Even Know What Pants Are! I’m a Fucking Judge, God Dammit!” The Band Didn’t Fare Much Better., 2019. Acrylic and glass bead gel on canvas, 72 x 96 inches, 183 x 224 cm
Broth Was the First to Abandon Our Commonly Held Ethos Around the Mini Bekeychained Bottles of Extra Virgin Coconut Oil, Having Drafted an Email to All of Us Airing His Grievances With the Product, and Then With Each of Us. It Was the First in a Series of Escalating Transgressions That Culminated in the Now-Infamous Crudities Incident, the Specifics of Which Are Frankly Too Disturbing to Describe During This Moth Story Slam, but Suffice It to Say That the Pivotal Moment Was the Reason Michael Keaton Still to This Day Cannot Even Look at a French Breakfast Radish, and Sparked the Series of Events Leading to the Show Horse That Was Present for the Iceberg Wedging Ceremony Having to Be Shot and Killed After Getting Its Leg Stuck in the Queso Fountain., 2019. Acrylic and sand on canvas, 72 x 96 inches, 183 x 224 cm
Aside From Our Hit “Ass, Gas or Grass (Manifest Destiny)” Which Had a Short-Lived Run on VH1 Canada’s Pop up Video, Mitchell Solieri and the Easy Rollers Didn’t See Much Success. The Cost of Gas Alone for a Touring Box Truck Outfitted for Five Adults and Fifteen Children Far Outweighed the Profits From Book Sales, and New Age Ska With White Nationalist Undertones as a Genre Never Really Took off in the U.S. the Way It Did in Eastern Europe. That Became Apparent When an Audience Member at the 2004 Best Buy Skank for DVD’s Event in Myrtle Beach Hurled a 15oz Tub of Ricotta Cheese Onstage During Our Song “Fist Full of Grapenuts.”, 2019. Acrylic on canvas, 70 x 50 inches, 178 x 127 cm
I Wouldn’t Say Ambien’s Sudden, Unexplained Resignation From Her 4-Year Position as Junior Assistant to the Head of Brand Manipulation for the Nashua, New Hampshire Police Department Had “Everything” to Do With the Corporate “Diversity Appreciation” Luncheon on August 9th Where She Debuted Her New, Novelty Cornrows From Her Vacation to Turks and Caicos, and Then Refused to Back Down During a Heated Exchange With Denise From Accounting That Resulted in an Overturned Shrimp Cocktail, but Yes It Was Due at Least in Small Part to That Incident, Though as Her Mother I Feel Compelled to Clarify That It Was Also Because of Her Growing Interest in Aerospace Engineering. No Further Comments. I’d Be Happy to Answer Any More Questions About the Cult., 2019. Acrylic and glass bead gel on canvas, 72 x 72 inches, 183 x 183 cm
Yes. Basically. Well, No. Not Exactly. It’s Complicated. For the Most Part, Yes. For All Intents and Purposes. Simply Put, Yes, I Am in the Position I Am in Today, as Spiritual Advisor to Celebrities Like John Hamm and Cher, Because of the Social Currency I Levereged After Defecting From Mitchell Solieri and the Holy Rollers in 2012 and Selling My Story to Us Weekly, but, No, I Don’t Feel I Have Profited From Solieri’s White Nationalist Agenda. But, Yes, Naturally I Have Benefited From White Supremacy in General by Virtue of Being White. How Else Could I Have Gotten Paleo-Enron Into Princeton?, 2019. Acrylic and glass bead gel on canvas over panel, 48 x 60 inches, 122 x 152 cm
The Hole is proud to announce Morgan Blair’s second solo exhibition at the gallery, I’m Holding a Sword. And an Axe. I’m Gonna Do Nothing. Two years after her debut TL;DR she has created a substantial body of work over the past nine months to fill the entire gallery space with thirteen new paintings.
Ranging in size—and shape—from the petite to the immersive, these textured airbrush paintings continue to explore her world of gradient-crazed semi-abstraction. Originating as sketches in clay (yes, you read that right) the shapes and colors are enlarged onto the canvas into tightly taped-off areas of sprayed paint and sand; rectangle, square and tondo. As you can see above, Blair generates a huge amount of intense visual information, a tangle or thicket of irresolvable action.
With backgrounds like TV static and foregrounds of tasty sand bits, these paintings have a three-dimensional quality of form and color with volume but seemingly no mass. The hovering gradients have a screen-like quality of course but the shapes feel like torn and collaged bits, or yes, lumpy claymation forms. While her last show drew on Youtube tutorials, Craigstlist “free stuff” and screenshots from amateur claymation, this show is less about random internet junk and more purposefully “molded” through preparatory clay sketches. The titles as well are no longer spam word jazz but now are rambling sequential excerpts from a fictional autobiographical tell-all outside a Closeout Heaven.
Perhaps the shift since her last show has been away from randomness; chaos and order are not mutually exclusive, and that applies to visual information in an artwork as well. These works are not random, they are merely chaotic; 3D insanity set into paintings by the “strange attractor” of the artist. The show title is from a recovered childhood drawing of hers revealing perhaps a Hamlet-like indecisiveness (or Bartleby-esque passivity?). In the artist’s words: “Not to put too fine a point on it, but maybe this highly specific and slightly fucked up but hopefully funny thing is what’s happening in abstract painting. Or not.”
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We Lock Eyes Over a Bin of Discounted Top Ramen Outside Closeout Heaven, and the World – This Sick, Twisted, Beautiful Fucked up World- Utterly Stops. The Yelling Man, the Wafting Smell of Rotting Shrimp, the Hot Wet Air, the Shredded Tarp Blowing in the Tree, the Blood Soaking Into the Sidewalk-Grave, the Existential Misery of the Dreadlocked Cat- It All Stops. And We Begin., 2019. Acrylic and sand on canvas, Diameter 42 inches, Diameter 106 cm
You, With Your Stolen Acoustic Guitar and Well-Worn Patchwork Corduroy Vest; Me With My Balenciaga Unicycle and Lofty Ambitions; My Ethically Non-Monogomous Partner Visiting From Phoenix With His Linen Pants and Heirloom Tambourine; Your Unethically Monogomous Partner With Her Dead Eyes and Cambodian Flute; Her Cousin and His Dewey Skin, Astrological Hand Tattoos and Palpable Maladjustment Issues. There We Were., 2019. Acrylic and glass bead gel on canvas over panel, 20 x 24 inches, 51 x 61 cm
And. The Thing. The Thing That Brought Us All Here to Closeout Heaven. The Thing That We Have on Our Persons at All Times, for Some as a Matter of Principle and Others a Matter of Safety. This Thing That Led Us Together, and Would Eventually Tear Us Violently, Irreversibly Apart – a Discontinued Mini Bekeychained Bottle of Extra Virgin Coconut Oil Discounted From $4.99 to $3.99 on Weekdays, Which, Now Dangling Prominently From Our Respective Septum Piercings, Glints in the Blinding Light of Our Newly Shared Aura., 2019. Acrylic and glass bead gel on canvas, Diameter 72 inches, Diameter 183 cm
The Five of Us All Somehow, Impossibly, Lock Together in a Tangled Web of Sustained, Boundaryless Eye Contact While Our Heartbeats Synchronize and Our Breath Merges Into One Long, Slow, Shared Gasp as We Understand… We Are One. We Each Take a Packet of Ramen, Tear the Wrapper off With Our Teeth and Crush the Bricks in Our Hands, Letting the Pieces Tumble Through Our Fingers Like the Scraps of Time and Space Falling Away Around Us, as If to Say, There but by the Grace of Our All-Encompassing Psychic Connection Go We. Mitchell Solieri and the Easy Rollers Are Formed., 2019. Acrylic and glass bead gel on canvas over panel, 48 x 60 inches, 122 x 152 cm
That Was 1996. If You Had Told Me That Over the Course of the Next 30 Years I Would Become Inextricably Wrapped up in a Hapless Cult Supported by a Complex Multilevel Marketing Scheme Designed to Promote and Circulate Solieri’s Self-Published Book (More of a Pamphlet, and Later an E-Book), “The Whiteness of Cauliflower: A Bespoke Guide to the Arian Race,” I Would Have Called You Crazy. But, That’s Exactly What Happened., 2019. Acrylic and glass bead gel on canvas over panel, 24 x 20 inches, 61 x 51 cm
The Book, Featuring a Foreword by Rand Paul’s Former Babysitter, Was a Scattered Attempt to Assert the Superiority of the “White Race” by Citing Their Cultural Innovations During the 21st Century. The Midwestern Tradition of Styling Cupcakes and Cheese Balls Into Small Footballs Was Lauded, as Were Capris, and Nostalgic Civil-War Era Fetish Music Like Mumford and Sons. He Also Credited Whites With Inventing the Ubiquitous Suburban Banh Mi Taco, Though Aside From the Callous Efficiency of Fast-Fusion, in Its Violent Practice of Killing Two Beautiful, “Ethnic” Birds With One Plymouth Rock, This Attribution Seemed Wholly Misguided. But, I Digress. There Were More Glaring Fallacies., 2019. Acrylic and sand on canvas, 60 x 60 inches, 152 x 152 cm
Solieri Asserted, for Example, That Kid Rock Invented Rock and Roll in 1998 With the Release of His Hit Album “Devil Without a Cause.” Patently False on Premise, at Minimum the Idea Even Managed to Overlook Rock’s Earlier Albums “Early Mornin’ Stoned PIMP” (1996), “The Polyfuze Method” (1993), and “Grits Sandwiches for Breakfast” (1990). Though, to Be Fair, These Were More Rap-Oriented. A Separate Issue. He Also Suggested That Peanut Butter, Widely Known to Have Been Invented by Marcellus Gilmore Edson in 1884, Was in Fact Invented by Ed Koch in 1992, Though He Cited No Evidence to Support This., 2019. Acrylic and glass bead gel on canvas over panel, 60 x 60 inches, 152 x 152 cm
It’s Hard to Say If Mitchell Solieri and the Easy Rollers the Cult or Mitchell Solieri and the Easy Rollers the Band Came First. In Truth, They Were Inextricably Linked; As Incestuously Intertwined as the Members Ourselves. By 2004 We Had Fifteen Children Between the Five of Us, Most of Them Fathered by Solieri. Baby Arugula, Baby Kale, Empathy, Carafe, Quinoa-Casserole, Meritocracy, Ambien, Broth, Paleo-Enron, Facade, Verizon, Rod Zombie, Asiago, Hugh Saturation Lightness, and Brodhi Would All Eventually Become Cops., 2019. Acrylic and glass bead gel on canvas, 78 x 56 inches, 198 x 142 cm
In Addition to Their Getting Septum Piercings at Birth, Solieri Insisted That Until Age 14 The Children All Wear Beige Drop-Crotch Sweatpants When in Public, Which We Were Tasked With Fashioning Ourselves as the Modern Version Didn’t yet Exist. Solieri Would Eventually Take Credit for the Invention in His Book, and in 2013 Attempted to Collect Damages for Copyright Infringement by Sueing the Fashion Retailer Pants Pantry on Judge Mathis. The Episode Famously Derailed When Judge Mathis Became Aware of the Premise of Solieri’s Book, and Pinned Him up Against the Bench, Yelling “You Don’t Even Know What Pants Are! I’m a Fucking Judge, God Dammit!” The Band Didn’t Fare Much Better., 2019. Acrylic and glass bead gel on canvas, 72 x 96 inches, 183 x 224 cm
Broth Was the First to Abandon Our Commonly Held Ethos Around the Mini Bekeychained Bottles of Extra Virgin Coconut Oil, Having Drafted an Email to All of Us Airing His Grievances With the Product, and Then With Each of Us. It Was the First in a Series of Escalating Transgressions That Culminated in the Now-Infamous Crudities Incident, the Specifics of Which Are Frankly Too Disturbing to Describe During This Moth Story Slam, but Suffice It to Say That the Pivotal Moment Was the Reason Michael Keaton Still to This Day Cannot Even Look at a French Breakfast Radish, and Sparked the Series of Events Leading to the Show Horse That Was Present for the Iceberg Wedging Ceremony Having to Be Shot and Killed After Getting Its Leg Stuck in the Queso Fountain., 2019. Acrylic and sand on canvas, 72 x 96 inches, 183 x 224 cm
Aside From Our Hit “Ass, Gas or Grass (Manifest Destiny)” Which Had a Short-Lived Run on VH1 Canada’s Pop up Video, Mitchell Solieri and the Easy Rollers Didn’t See Much Success. The Cost of Gas Alone for a Touring Box Truck Outfitted for Five Adults and Fifteen Children Far Outweighed the Profits From Book Sales, and New Age Ska With White Nationalist Undertones as a Genre Never Really Took off in the U.S. the Way It Did in Eastern Europe. That Became Apparent When an Audience Member at the 2004 Best Buy Skank for DVD’s Event in Myrtle Beach Hurled a 15oz Tub of Ricotta Cheese Onstage During Our Song “Fist Full of Grapenuts.”, 2019. Acrylic on canvas, 70 x 50 inches, 178 x 127 cm
Aside From Our Hit “Ass, Gas or Grass (Manifest Destiny)” Which Had a Short-Lived Run on VH1 Canada’s Pop up Video, Mitchell Solieri and the Easy Rollers Didn’t See Much Success. The Cost of Gas Alone for a Touring Box Truck Outfitted for Five Adults and Fifteen Children Far Outweighed the Profits From Book Sales, and New Age Ska With White Nationalist Undertones as a Genre Never Really Took off in the U.S. the Way It Did in Eastern Europe. That Became Apparent When an Audience Member at the 2004 Best Buy Skank for DVD’s Event in Myrtle Beach Hurled a 15oz Tub of Ricotta Cheese Onstage During Our Song “Fist Full of Grapenuts.”, 2019. Acrylic on canvas, 70 x 50 inches, 178 x 127 cm
I Wouldn’t Say Ambien’s Sudden, Unexplained Resignation From Her 4-Year Position as Junior Assistant to the Head of Brand Manipulation for the Nashua, New Hampshire Police Department Had “Everything” to Do With the Corporate “Diversity Appreciation” Luncheon on August 9th Where She Debuted Her New, Novelty Cornrows From Her Vacation to Turks and Caicos, and Then Refused to Back Down During a Heated Exchange With Denise From Accounting That Resulted in an Overturned Shrimp Cocktail, but Yes It Was Due at Least in Small Part to That Incident, Though as Her Mother I Feel Compelled to Clarify That It Was Also Because of Her Growing Interest in Aerospace Engineering. No Further Comments. I’d Be Happy to Answer Any More Questions About the Cult., 2019. Acrylic and glass bead gel on canvas, 72 x 72 inches, 183 x 183 cm
Yes. Basically. Well, No. Not Exactly. It’s Complicated. For the Most Part, Yes. For All Intents and Purposes. Simply Put, Yes, I Am in the Position I Am in Today, as Spiritual Advisor to Celebrities Like John Hamm and Cher, Because of the Social Currency I Levereged After Defecting From Mitchell Solieri and the Holy Rollers in 2012 and Selling My Story to Us Weekly, but, No, I Don’t Feel I Have Profited From Solieri’s White Nationalist Agenda. But, Yes, Naturally I Have Benefited From White Supremacy in General by Virtue of Being White. How Else Could I Have Gotten Paleo-Enron Into Princeton?, 2019. Acrylic and glass bead gel on canvas over panel, 48 x 60 inches, 122 x 152 cm