Nick Hoover - Burning Red Sky

Taymour Grahne Projects is pleased to present 'Burning Red Sky', an online solo exhibition by Brooklyn-based artist Nick Hoover, opening virtually on May 8, 2021. Nick Hoover makes paintings about longing, desire and memory. His paintings deal with various art history references, exploring color and light, mark-making, and a playfulness with traditional oil painting techniques. The paintings deal with the performative nature of being looked at and the limitations of looking.

Hoover appropriates the gaze of both the figures in his works and the viewer and by doing so considers the implications — What information do we glean from our closest interactions? What of ourselves do we give away? The viewer is asked to consider their voyeuristic nature and the figures are left to consider their own desires, the discomfort of their being looked at, their skepticism, the need to keep the viewers’ gaze and finally, the propensity for all of it to suddenly end.

Hoover is always thinking about queer bodies and gestures in his work. These particular works are more quotidian in their gestures and more about the everyday routine where overt sexualization is pared back. There’s also a deliberate effort to not always differentiate between the queerness of the figures. This entices the viewer to wonder about the relationships between the figures when it's not overtly obvious. It stems from the artist's urge to want everyone to know his gayness and simultaneously not wanting anyone to feel like they have ownership over it or be able to ascribe it to himself.