Don Eddy, Emigre Winter, 2016-2017, acrylic on canvas, 48in x 44in. (Courtesy: Nancy Hoffman Gallery)
In these times, “beautiful paintings” (in the simplest terms) are already experiencing a critical comeback judging partly from the otherwise diverse press on the Whitney’s stalled Agnes Pelton show.
In this vein, an exhibition of recent paintings and a few semi- drawings on panel (2016 – 2020) by Don Eddy at Nancy Hoffman, scheduled to open just as the COVID halt ensued, is first on my list. Meanwhile, the gallery has a nice presentation online with an array of accompanying text materials and a short video (below) in which the artist emphasizes the role of individual, disparate viewers in delimiting the content of his art. Having worked with photographic sources and media from the start of his prolific career into present digital age, Eddy’s work lends to reproduction on screen. What won’t come through until you meet an Eddy picture plane in person is its immaculately compressed layers, which, upon moving close-up and back, hovers between Seurat-like pixilation and a Kodak Instamatic.