Impressions of the Fall at 47 Canal

Artists: Marley Freeman, Lewis Hammond, G. Peter Jemison, Alex Kwartler, Sydney Shen, Trevor Shimizu, and Jesse Wine

Exhibition title: Impressions of the Fall

Venue: 47 Canal, New York, US

Date: March 10 – April 9, 2022

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and 47 Canal, New York

“Impressions of the Fall” pieces together a kind of anachronistic reverence for seasonality. The paintings, drawings, and sculptures in this exhibition commune in spirited subjectivity around naturalistic referents.

Guided by the traditional Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) concept of Orenda, G. Peter Jemison’s works are personal studies in the vibrancy of every living thing. Sunflowers, though dried and past their prime for picking, bow towards the sun. On a closer look, long shadows reveal bright and delicate blue lines, their figures surrounded by energetic white lines emanating and absorbing into the field. Nothing is out of place or out of time in each of Jemison’s pictures––not a country road, a tuft of yellow grass, or a windswept weed bisecting the foreground.

From afar, Alex Kwartler’s monochromatic paintings appear as small and neat geometries. One can barely appreciate the stack of turtles in his Infinite Regress (with tuna) II or the soft footprint in Green Signature (w/ tuna) before an expiration date forces the eyes into focus. The metallic bottoms of tuna cans punctuate the surface with some infusion of humor and a reminder that nothing lasts forever.

Fall 2021 is Trevor Shimizu’s first and only autumn landscape. Here, the oversized work stretches edge to edge on a wall seemingly made to fit the painting, presenting like a dramatic backdrop for a stage. Referring to Pierre Bonnard, his recent turn towards post-impressionism exemplifies that the artist does indeed have all his subjects at hand. While some more experienced critics may be right to call his style “de-skilled” or “irreverent,” Shimizu likely prefers a different brand altogether.

Sitting quietly on the floor in front of Shimizu’s theatrical fall scene is an abandoned wasps’ nest with the word “Private” etched into the face. Taking its title from a line out of Anaïs Nin’s House of Incest, Sydney Shen’s readymade sculpture evokes an interiority that touches on the edge of absurdity, kind of like “going to the woods to be alone.”

In a different vein of psychological interiority, Lewis Hammond’s prickly cast bronze sculpture of a Hawthorn branch sprouts out of a nearby wall, projecting just above head height. like weeds we will grow 4 comes from Hammond’s disquieting world of enclosed spaces where seemingly hostile or even deathly appearances double as protective reinforcement from the outside.

In Jesse Wine’s Pins and Needles, a pair of legs stand exaggerated as if holding in balance the weight of the cairn stacked on top. Grass peaks through a crevice of a sidewalk fragment below. So often in Wine’s hand built ceramic sculptures, limbs tower over buildings, almost becoming buildings in themselves. The softness of their shapes and mineral finishes hints at an idealized hierarchy of form and function in the built environment.

Marley Freeman’s small, colorful paintings slip easily between playful figuration and abstraction. Taking inspiration from landscapes and textiles, they open themselves to momentary meaning in the making.