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| Robert Horvath (Gallery One) |
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We live in a society where celebrity worship and obsession with wealth and luxury
coexist daily with news of impending pandemic threats and political and religious
warfare. Gaudy displays of vanity and self-aggrandizing behavior are acceptable
means to define our cultural personas. Tempted by the glow of the spotlight, and
seduced by excess, we are told by our that we can solve the world's problems simply
by shopping.
In Robert Horvath's paintings he explores this relationship: a shiny sparkling
surface world and a dark, troubled world of fear. Young beautiful bodies vogue and
pose in empty, acid-colored spaces. Exposed skin takes on a cold, other worldly
sheen wrapped in the latest designer fashions. Lurking behind the glitter, the
desire for status motivates and defines the search for an advantageous mate. Viral
entities, gas clouds and bubbling pink sores begin to roll in to obscure or engulf
the figures in mid-come-on. This combined imagery forces a visual duality: the
escapist pop culture youth can no longer hide from and the horrors of reality.
With our attention being pulled in so many directions by media saturation and the
cult of celebrity, our society seems to turn its assessing eye further and further
inward, away from the darkness of the world's problems. These paintings ask?.is this
candy-land we have created a beautiful barrage of harmless luxury, or will this
insidious viral nature lead to our extinction?
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