Jason Fox
Square Cave, Mar 17 – Apr 23, 2017

CANADA is pleased to announce Square Cave, an exhibition of new paintings and drawings by Jason Fox presented in both galleries. In conjunction with the show, CANADA has published a book on the artist.

In Fox’s universe, demons, angels, pop stars, beloved dead pets and politicians walk amongst mortals. Satirical, yet introspective, his paintings and drawings seem directly involved in the process of their own creation. Winged figures or skeletal bots stand ready at the easel, hybrid apparitions gaze back at us. Post-Picasso painters, hollowed out by endless war, are filled up again with historical modernist allusions. A hapless Everyman holds his head in his hands while lumbering golems, wearing nothing but white Cezanne underwear, exude last gasps of machismo and offer humor and pathos in equal measure. Fox’s subjects confront rather than seduce—armed with bloated spliffs and American flags—as portraits of the collision between outer and inner worlds. It’s a destabilizing brand of mischief, and not without consequence.

At the heart of Fox’s practice are his drawings and it seems apt that a whole gallery will be dedicated to showing them. His process is deceptively simple: he might render an image with washes of saturated green or red, wait for the watercolor to dry and then overlay another image on top of the first recalling Francis Picabia and Jasper Johns. This technique creates emotional resonance and suggests propositions about culture, politics and celebrity. Fox designs ciphers from a personal bank of imagery and allows the viewer to make their own conclusions.

It may be that Fox is a contemporary symbolist, recalling the angst and psychological turbidity of artists like Philip Guston or Edvard Munch. He alternates between cool Modernist experiments--Agnes Martin meets Hammer Horror films--and his comic book influences that build a link between El Greco and Jack Kirby. The humor is acidic and personal; the contrasts don’t let anyone off easily and ultimately bear witness to the rancor of our times.

Jason Fox was born in 1964 in Yonkers, New York. He currently lives and works in Poughkeepsie, New York. Exhibitions include shows at Feature Inc., New York; Peter Blum, New York; Retrospective, New York; Mario Dacono at Ars Libri, Boston; Cabinet Gallery, London, UK; Greener Pastures Contemporary Art, Toronto, Canada; and at the Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, Mexico City, Mexico. Group shows include Zeitgeist at MAMCO in Genève, Switzerland; Every Revolution is a Roll of Dice organized by Bob Nickas at Paula Cooper Gallery, New York and at the Ballroom Marfa, Texas; Greater New York at MoMA P.S.1, New York; and Drunk vs. Stoned at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, New York.

[...]