I just managed to squeak in to see the Ed Moses show at Brian Gross Fine Art last week before it closed for the holiday, and even having heard the paintings on display were fairly different from the abstract work Moses is known for I was still blown away. There were five large canvases in the gallery, each one a dizzying concoction of stenciled patterns and animals that varied slightly from work to work in color and repetition. I was fascinated by the '70s-bedspread amalgam of elephants, tigers, zebras, and giraffes that form the base of the paintings, which Moses has then interrupted with patches of flowers and butterflies. Visually it was almost as if sections of wallpaper had been peeled off a wall and revealed hidden histories underneath. More than anything I found the paintings utterly joyful as the colors in them appeared to shimmer and dance, their blurred layers creating the illusion of movement.
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