Paul Gagner - "The Cut of My Jib"

 Artist and sculptor Paul Gagner is suspicious of artists who confidently tell grand narratives and act as future predictors. His project-space show titled The Cut of My Jib at Hashimoto Contemporary reflects the anxieties that plague and promulgate his creative process and the two states upholding it: isolation and exploration. A stylistic shapeshifter, Gagner distills his artistic anxieties succinctly into a visual work, offering wry musings on life as a creative and the eccentricity of tedious circumstances.

Never one to be self-serious in his intro- and extrospection, Gagner inserts humor and absurdity into traditional painting forms like the still life, the self-portrait, and the landscape, making fun of the artist as a lone discoverer. Plein Air Painting on Mars shows an astronaut painting a pink and purple Martian landscape, poking fun at an artistic final frontier, or the race to be the first depicting something new, extraordinary, out of this world. I Spy keeps the subject and viewer on Earth, showing a single eyeball snaking through a spiral telescope to view a spider on its web. The explorer surpasses all the other bugs on the telescope’s surface, emphasizing the lengths one might go to discover something observable by the naked eye—something already in plain sight. 

Drawing attention to his anxieties around artmaking, the exhibition features a wide range of styles and subject matter, as though Gagner is multiple different artists. “I’m not interested in making ‘Paul Gagner paintings,’” he writes. “Instead, I try to pour everything into each one of my paintings as if I've never done this before.” This eclectic group of artworks showcases Gagner’s tumultuous identity as an artist, asking the viewer to assess the cut of his jib.

The Cut of My Jib opens on August 10th with a reception from 6-8 pm. Gagner will also host a special artist reception where he will be in attendance on Saturday, August 17th, from 6 pm - 7 pm. The project space exhibition runs through August 31st. For additional information, images, or press requests, email NYC@HashimotoContemporary.com