A Heart’s Hot Shell
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
RARE Gallery is displaying the transluscent, evocative paintings of Aaron Holz through Thursday of this week in an exhibition entitled “A Heart’s Hot Shell.”
According to the gallery, “The title of the exhibition is taken from Chapter 41 of Herman Melville’s novel Moby-Dick, which references Captain Ahab’s obsessive quest for the great white whale in the following sentence: ‘He piled upon the whale’s white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart’s shell upon it.'”
“For Holz, a similar desire exists at the threshold of each new work. His search often leads him along unexpected paths, as if he were unconsciously letting the painting direct itself, allowing it to expand and contract, to move back and forth among its divergent layers of gesso, acrylic, oil, and resin so that figures, foreground, background, colors, textures, and space find an equilibrium.”
“Aaron Holz: A Heart’s Hot Shell” runs through October 6 at RARE Gallery, 547 West 27 Street, between 10th and 11th avenues, No. 514, 646-339-6050, rare-gallery.com.
Franklin Einspruch is an artist and writer.
