Smaller works line up in a row in Ted Gahl’s “Night Painter,” on view at DODGEgallery (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
DODGEgallery
15 Rivington St. between Bowery & Chrystie St.
Wednesday – Sunday through November 13
Admission: free
212-228-5122
www.dodge-gallery.com
www.tedgahl.blogspot.com
The phrase “can’t sleep” is written at the bottom of one of Ted Gahl’s acrylic paintings in his first New York solo exhibition, and that stark admission lies at the heart of the artist’s world view. We first encountered the Pratt and RISD graduate’s enticing work over the summer when he was part of DODGEgallery’s “Shakedown” group show, celebrating the Lower East Side space’s one-year anniversary. An insomniac who makes sketches on napkins by day and exquisite abstract paintings at night, Gahl fills his solo debut, “Night Painter,” on view at DODGE through November 13 (yes, it is open on Sundays), with a bold mix of acrylic, oil, pastel, graphite, and mixed media works that are wise beyond his years. The twenty-eight-year-old artist focuses on deep blues and blacks, the color of night, with splashes of red, green, and yellow, in works that open up representationally as one gets closer: Examining their many subtleties reveals doorways, mouse holes, and, often, large figures hidden away in the background. Memories that come in the darkest night lead to such larger canvases as “Sleeping Painter,” “In the Garden,” and “Sleepwalking,” joined by a series of fourteen-by-eleven-inch paintings that show Gahl’s playful sense of humor; “Dilemma (Sleepy Nail)” depicts a hammer and nail, evoking the hanging of a picture, while “Self Portrait” includes a cigarette sticking out from a colorful silkscreen.
Ted Gahl, “In the Garden,” acrylic and oil pastel on unprimed canvas, and “Church,” acrylic on stainless steel, 2011 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
Since he was a child, Gahl, who was born in New Haven and is now based in Brooklyn and Litchfield, has been fascinated by sailboats, which appear in numerous pieces, most noticeably as small wooden triangles that stick out of canvases, not only lending them a unique three-dimensionality but also casting intriguing shadows and coming off as slightly threatening, their sharp edges pointing straight into the onlooker’s gaze like daggers in the eyes that keep one up at night. (In another self-reflexive reference, the triangles are actually shims, which are used in the hanging and shipping of artworks.) Many of the pieces evoke Philip Guston, another night painter who went back and forth between abstract and figural representation; “Neighbor,” “French Man at Night,” and “The Big House” even utilize Guston’s immediately recognizable color scheme. The show also features several illuminating sketches in addition to a pair of walking sticks, called “Family Jewels,” one by Gahl, the other by his father, paying tribute to his legacy. “Night Painter” is a must-see exhibit, filled with works that are well worth lingering over, by an extremely skillful and knowledgeable emerging artist whose persistent inability to sleep leads to paintings that will keep you up at night thinking about them.