“WET DREAM TOMATO” ORGANIZED BY GUNNER DONGIEUX @ 48 HESTER ST, NEW YORK, NY 11 AUGUST — 30 AUGUST 2022
Wet Dream Tomato features works by Gunner Dongieux, Sunday Fall, Alex Leav, Mad Luellen, and Patrick Quinn.
Artists in the show examine cultural disconnects- public versus personal perceptions of self, the existence of multiple realities, and blurred lines between truth and myth. Exhibited works skillfully weave between pop-cultural puns and one-liners, using humor as entry points into these collective conversations.
Visual puns provide a slick slapstick surface to the show. The painter/poet Sunday Fall plays with literal linguistic humor in Banana Head and Kill Time. Quinn’s A-S-S of oysters hangs above Luellen’s silicone cast of his ass. Printed fragments of Louis Theroux’s viral Jiggle Jiggle treestyle form a conceptual connective tissue, linking Leav’s drawings to her gestural paintings of squatting Instagram tushies.
Mad Luellen writes: “Humor is a Trojan horse to veil darker and visceral concepts, enticing viewers to spend more time with subjects that might otherwise be uncomfortable.” Embedded into Ass Cast are shotgun pellets, loaded with questions of penetration, violent or pleasurable. In paintings by Fall and Dongieux, humor suspends disbelief towards urban legends of varying believabilly; An erotic encounter between Santa and Mrs. Claus; Nat king Cole fending off an assassin; Richard Gere buying drinks for two gerbils at 169 bar; Nic Cage stealing the Declaration of Independence; a wizard boy speaking Parseltongue to an insurance-selling gecko.
Wet Dream Tomato will be on view August 11- 30th at 48 Hester Street, New York, NY.
48 Hester st
NY, NY 10002
