Once again Philadelphia based artist Jim Houser (Vol. 17) has allowed us entry into his magnetic observatory of images, odd objects and provocative poetic texts with his new offering of work at Jonathan LeVine’s pop up gallery within the Volta art fair in NYC this weekend. The new work revisits Houser’s signature collage painting style and color harmony, reflecting on the quiet poetry of an observed life. The show entices every sense as a score of his original music plays through speakers as part of an altar of sound, while a gorgeous piece of sea dimpled drift wood and knotted twine add tactile textures to the otherwise flat acrylic squares that form a dazzling quilt like threading together of his figures, typography and geometric shapes. The poetic texts are snares that invoke forgotten feelings of fleeting moments and give voice to the works, paired closely with the symbolic images of both peril and comfort.
