Michael Ashkin. Dismal Dreaming

About

Cathouse is proud to present a dual gallery solo exhibition of recent works by Michael Ashkin spanning both our FUNeral and Proper spaces. Dismal Dreaming opens first at Cathouse FUNeral with a new material direction for the artist, constructed photo spray-paintings. The new paintings on corrugated cardboard and course grit sandpaper evoke interior and exterior views of industrial or institutional settings that are installed, here, with a sensitivity to narrative. Mostly black and white, the paintings are not realistic, but rather deceptively photographic, and are carefully constructed with layered stenciling techniques that leave a trace in paint of what is depicted (a miniature light post, a rendered parapet). With this exhibition, Ashkin brings his already formative engagement with photography, sculpture, installation and video to bear on the language of painting.

At Cathouse Proper (opening after FUNeral but overlapping for two weeks) is an extreme series of over 900 black and white photographs, each printed 4x5”, that intensively pursue failed developments, forgotten spaces, and the dregs of American capital in select areas of California. Considering the sheer volume of photographs, each is a surprisingly taut compositional idea that repeatedly and deftly locates a place (California, but not) suffused with regret and longing. There are no snapshots here, each is investigative and discursive but also, in equal measure, haunted and uncanny. Ashkin has worked with large photo grids in the past, and also photo book editions (Garden State, Long Branch), which focus on a particular place. Dismal Dreaming is this and more as it pushes us toward an intelligent but obsessive infinity of seemingly endless dread.