Opening this Friday at Anno Domini in San Jose is Maxwell Loren Holyoke-Hirsch's debut solo show A Season In Hell. Always and forever a huge fan of Maxwell's, I was delighted to check out some of the work that will be on show this Friday. (It made up for the fact that I actually had a trip scheduled out to the West Coast to see this show, but have since had to cancel it. Ahhh, well.) Maxwell will be showing 17 18x24 gouache paintings, 3 30x40 paintings (all coated in resin), 90 framed works as well as woodcuts and about 200 pieces on paper, roughly. AND he'll be installing a few things too. Sounds like it's going to be epic and definitely not to be missed. Not. To. Be. Missed. Do you hear me? As if such an endorsement isn't enough, just read this little ditty. I got the warm fuzzies after reading it, especially since today is election day.
A Season in Hell is at times a stream of consciousness depositing abstract spectrums across a canvass; at others, thoughtful hands carving geometric forms into two-toned wood. There's obtuse volumes interpreted from the urban habitat and organic figures conjured from surrealistic mindscapes. This results in themes of alignment and opposition: love and madness, joy and despair, calm and obsession, order and chaos, becoming and dissolving, inheritance and innovation, hope. A non-narrative story told by experiencing, the work presented here is an era defined, a moment in the journey towards our fullest potential.
