BADLANDZ
Zane Lewis
The Hole
312 Bowery
New York City, NY 10012
October 21 – November 22
The Hole presents the first major US solo show by Zane Lewis called “BADLANDZ”. There are seven new paintings included in the exhibition, in two different sizes.
Lewis’s paintings are transformative; they transcend both their materials and the viewer’s senses. Even if the physical transformation is just a wash of color across the cornea, it is the visceral intensity of the paintings that leads to an immersive and magical experience.
The uniqueness of his work emanates an otherworldliness. They don’t look like graffiti or various spray abstractions artists have made in the past few decades, they have that something extra that separates them and makes them distinctly their own; fresh and contemporary.
Zane Lewis wants the works to feel like you have gone into uncharted territory, a desert perhaps where nothing grows, an ocean of color, or a “space” separate from reality. It is here where the works convey a sense of power and danger; there is nothing to hold on to as you can’t but succumb to their mesmerizing presence. The parenthetical titles may give you a nudge in some direction but really the hovering color and the illusion of glowing light and composed space is the subject. Lewis is interested in philosophies of color-field painting, hard-edge abstraction and minimalism but develops the paintings intuitively, they push him as he pushes back.
