Featuring:

Alphachanneling
Michael Dotson
Ryan Michael Ford
Todd James
Josh Reames
Lola Montes Schnabel
Ryan Schneider
Brian Willmont

The Hole is proud to announce a group show of raw and fuzzy figuration in our Gallery 3 space featuring paintings and works on paper by nine contemporary artists. In a natural fiber-covered gallery of browns and tans, these bright works will look at the Fauvist impulses of some artists today and in what ways they use strong color and fanciful rendering to deviate from traditional representation.

From the aggressively painted and colored “masks” by Ryan Schneider to the delicately lined dream-like paintings on pink panel by Lola Montes Schnabel, the techniques in the show vary, but the confidently illogical use of color continues through the group. A canary yellow cat on a hot pink nude in Todd James’ painting strongly resonates with Matisse’s contours of flat color and makes a specific nod, perhaps, with its bright red background. Josh Reames’ “bad internet” painting of slick airbrushed edges and drop shadows feature pungently indigo lemons and black palm trees. Perhaps furthest “out there” in the realm of bizarro color is Ryan Michael Ford who offers us bright red skies and lakes of lava, aliens and plushies, plus “bubble humpers,” whatever those are, pictured above.

One strong and visceral theme in the show is the infusion of libidinal energy in the artworks, from the wet ‘n’ wild orgasmic Little Mermaid painting by Michael Dotson even to the smattering of hot droplets across Brian Willmont’s composition. The drawings by Alphachanneling certainly hit this nail on the head with lovely and spiritual renderings of couples and groups fooling around. These colored pencil people, sketched in simple arcs of pinks and blues, are their own sweet sex garden unto themselves.