//MIXED FEELINGS // is the debut solo show of Brooklyn-based artist Zach Herdman. The exhibition includes paintings, photography, a printed zine, projected digital work, and installation, all of which were created by the artist over the last four years. His body of work primarily consists of paintings, a mix of large and small canvases that depict figurative neon vignettes and abstract impressions. To look at Z’s paintings conjures a dreamlike state of observation. Despite the stillness of the medium, the work exudes movement, vibrating with color and shifting fixation. The works are deeply layered both in process and technique. Each painting, the result of multiple sessions of acute focus and inspiration. In this sense, his paintings never sit still; The colors and shapes overlap, their edges blurring together until what we are left with is something that feels like remembering. The figures that inhabit the paintings often meet the gaze of the viewer with an entranced look of cool observation; their eyes offering an island of realism amidst a debris of brushstrokes. Moments arrested in time and space—a boxer in the heat of battle, a glowering figure with a pack of cigarettes. There is something distinctly urban in his paintings, from the streetwear of his subjects to the neon color palette and graphic shapes reminiscent of traffic cones and city hazard signs. Yet, amidst this chaos, there's a subtle framework; lines, patterns, figures, eyes, gestures, clouds, water. This patchwork of imagery seems to spontaneously combust before our eyes in a glorious cacophony of shape and color. When viewed collectively, the artworks evoke a sense of expansion. The canvases themselves reaching out to one another, threads forming between each surface, connecting infinitely.
Mixed Feelings envelopes viewers within a visual landscape where chaos and tenderness intertwine. Z captures a state of lucidity where the inner world is magnified,
