Ended
Tom Koehler
While You Talk to Yourself
Feb 8 – Mar 3, 2019
King's Leap is please to present new painted cast metal sculptures by Tom Koehler.
A blade cuts through the horizon, green hills fading into the storm.
The patriot rides on an empty tank, the smell of oil pulsing back through his nervous system. Refilling his car, the buzz of a clock hums through the night, a panicked reminder of just who’s who, what’s what. The arms of this clock, ticking ever closer to sunrise, reveal themselves as the tools for a structure that was never built.
A still lit match falls into the fuel. There’s no pain, only a seismic rupture, rushing faster down the highway than a cop in pursuit. He’s floating higher, no discernable space between the road and the sky. Mud consumes his body, covering each limb before reaching his grimace. His dimples start to harden, a cast set. The plastic takes the blow, gravitational force reversing its direction, blowback.
Bubbling out of this wasteland is a painting that appears to have no boundary or edge. Can a picture’s material circumscription push one to the furthest reaches?
He knows this picture doesn’t matter. What he sees is not what’s beyond a frame, but rather what’s defined by its limit. That which appears weightless can’t escape the burden of itself; it just is what it is.
His organs untie like jumper cables; freefall. Voices echo and insects crawl alongside tools suspended without action. Yes, this is the great range, the Die Americana, the final resting place while you talk to yourself.
Tom Koehler is an artist currently living in Queens, NY. Recent exhibitions have included Helper, 2017, and Tubbplug, 2018.
