Opening Season
Tom Wixo, October 28th - November 30th, 2023

The works presented in Opening Season use multiple motifs to shift between methods of telling the same story. One, aggressive and forward, derives from an image of a famous NHL enforcer squaring up to fight. Another, deeply sentimental, is pulled from an image of my grandfather’s garden. A third sits comically defensive depicting a goalie hiding behind his mask. Unsure of a distinction between the feelings of ironic sentimentality and actual loss, the work sits in the space between mocking and earnestness when we allow memories to hold space in our minds. Placing a high value on this ambivalence, the paintings remain committed to the in-between, without interest in consensus or finding compromise. Performative painting gestures undermine the methodical repetition of forms, foregrounding each painting’s fractured narrative—the only truth revealed is that even the narrator doesn’t know the true story.