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Passion Pieces
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f an art exhibition can be said to have curb appeal, a drive past the Todd Weiner Gallery right now yields the visual equivalent of a hot pickup line. Jim Sajovic’s new solo show, Hix Fragments & (pash’n), is hard to miss from the street. e Mor Explosive colors dazzle like fireworks through the gallery’s glimmert a e in Onl .com ing glass windows. And h c pit that effect only intensifies once you’ve stepped into the gallery, where Sajovic’s meditations on human expression and eroticism achieve hypnotic power. Sajovic’s digital paintings blur the line between electronic and physical brushwork, combining pigmented inks and oldfashioned acrylics. The paintings in his Hix Fragments series add text to that already complex aesthetic, overlaying images with lines clipped from the poetry of Sajovic’s friend H.L. Hix. “Never in Control” stamps a fuzzy self-portrait with semitransparent text. The squat, angular lettering simultaneously softens the image and gives it texture, and the crisp turquoise dots separating each word help us parse the poetry. “Sometimes Lie” offers a less straightforward presentation. Sajovic makes you work for the message — letter size and spacing vary within the verse, slowing down your eye as you scan the canvas. Some words are in the foreground, others blurred. The text’s palette
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Jim Sajovic raises a blush
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at the Todd Weiner Gallery.
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here appears more delicate than in Sajovic’s male counterpart. Each of these subjects, the other works, with lighter pinks and sea greens overlaid text says, could become “a razor in the night without warning.” floating ethereally in front of the background Across the gallery, (pash’n) throbs with an image’s deeper tones. almost palpable eroticism. Couples, not indiTwo of the exhibition’s most enthralling viduals, are the focus here, and each paintpieces share a title. “I may kill…” stretches the ing in the series exposes an electric moment same haunting poetic fragment over paintbetween two lovers. “Flicker,” “Licker” and ings of two faces, one male and one female. The Todd Weiner Gallery presents the pieces “Lip Nip” hang together on one wall, crafting visual harmony with interwoven colors. together on one wall, highlighting the themes The vibrant, high-saturation inks meld and and tropes in conversation. Though each tug at the couple’s faces, capturing them as if painting is a stand-alone marvel of emotional and visual depth, the interplay between the through an infrared camera. Heat blooms in two adds yet another layer to Sajovic’s work. Sajovic’s unbridled palette: magentas, deep purples, fiery oranges and The male painting presents lipstick reds. the poetic fragments as a Hix Fragments As in Hix Fragments, howwide net of text, with the & (pash’n) ever, there’s more to these sans-serif letters and wide Through December 2 paintings than what emerges kerning of an eye doctor’s at Todd Weiner Gallery at first blush. Sajovic’s acrylic chart. As in “Sometimes 115 West 18th Street glaze adds a visual texture Lie,” we have to concentrate toddweinergallery.com that you can appreciate only for meaning to emerge — our up close. Razor-thin lines of more immediate focus remains on the man’s expressive features and pale pink and green jet across the paintings like static on an old television. The hand-applied piercing, pool-blue eyes. In the female iteration, the text is fully in- paint flecks the work with slight imperfections as it pools in the corners, making these pieces tegrated in the scene: Words are swiped on the canvas as if on a steamed-up mirror, letting us feel even more human and alive. “Lip Nip” is intoxicating in its intimacy. glimpse the richer, more saturated colors beThe interplay of light and shadow emphasizes hind the fog. The letters are scrawled unevenly the natural curves and contours of a couple’s across the surface, capturing the imperfection of an unsteady finger on glass. The humidity faces, veiling everything but the essentials in softens the woman’s face, but her expression dark romanticism. In each (pash’n) piece, gender isn’t immeis no less haunting and alive than that of her
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From left: “I may kill…” (F), “I may kill…” (M) and “Never in Control” diately apparent; Sajovic allows us to imbue the scenes with our own histories and desires. “Flicker,” for example, presents two faces in near mirror image, their features converging like molten metal into a pattern reminiscent of a Rorschach ink blot. Only the slight tilt of a face breaks the symmetry, allowing us to distinguish one from the other. “Devour” dances more deliberately with this kind of ambiguity. Its commingling splashes of color make it nearly impossible to isolate individual features and faces. Shapes melt together, evolving into a permanent fusion of bodies and passions. “Frenzy” and “Devour” are staged together on their own wall here, a presentation that brings into relief the subtle differences between (pash’n)’s component paintings. These two tweak the palette slightly, mixing dusky blues and greens in the top third of each canvas. That arrangement pulls the eye down to find the higher-saturation colors at each painting’s base. We scan the canvases as we might look upon a mate, our eyes drawn toward colors and curves. As seductive as (pash’n) is, Sajovic’s exhibition is most alluring when taken in at once. The two halves sweep you into a deeply affecting current of intimacy, identity and desire.
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november 28 -december 4, 2013
the pitch
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