Co:straight.com
By ryan witt
THE ARTIST: Char Hoyt
THE LOWDOWN: Head in the Clouds is an ambitious showing of recent 2-D work from the local comic artist. Composed of ink drawings, oil paintings, and several installations, the exhibition fuses together several loosely related themes under the umbrella of Hoyt's ongoing interest in the weather, especially the inclement variety.
COORDINATES: Head in the Clouds runs until December 31 at the Butchershop gallery (195 East 26th Avenue). Hours are 12 p.m. to 5 p.m., Friday to Tuesday.
PROCESS ORIENTED: Hoyt increasingly utilizes the repetition of motifs and figures in her humorous illustrations of the quotidian highs and lows she experiences. Meanwhile, the varied representations of ominous storm-cloud formations are a fitting metaphor for her perspective on the dark sociopolitical situation we currently endure. Hoyt uses the self- portrait and landscape genres to great effect, stripping away perspectival depth with her emphasis on the sky. The larger oil paintings--typically executed over a period of several months--feature what the artist has called "ass balls", rotund figures expressing intense emotional states. Complementing Hoyt's illustrated landscape work is a series of mutilated self-portraits in ink and spray paint that shift between representation and abstraction. A couple of installations round out the show: a gorgeous charcoal tornado piece spiralling up the west wall of the Butchershop, and a flock of stencil-painted crows travelling along the east one.
WHAT IT ALL MEANS: "The show is mostly concerned with the weather and how our emotional states might relate to what is going on outside. How it can mirror those feelings, or maybe not at all," says Hoyt in an interview at the gallery. "I find crows to be interesting birds in that they mimic our patterns of family and daily life. They represent our community, or at least my community."
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