Slurpee Machine

CANADA is pleased to present _Slurpee Machine_ a show of paintings and drawings on note cards by Tyson Reeder in the gallery's project room. Reeder's depictions of people, places and scenes are liquidy and candy-colored. They roil and stretch while never directly corresponding to any namable time. Exclusive and just out of reach, they also feel inviting, beckoning us to join in. The paintings could be depictions of a Weimar era cabaret, a cool 60's happening or a discotheque on a space station. The paintings pulse with music that is strange and futuristic. Angular graphic design merges with life, as weirdos in spandex bodysuits pose and play instruments. Cars zoom through fluorescent coral reefs and escalators climb through abandoned shopping malls. Reeder's characters, flaneurs and fashion plates, blend in and out of the backgrounds which Reeder builds using a variety of idiosyncratic painting techniques. He is a multimedia daredevil: nail polish, magic marker, glitter, thumb prints, pom poms and impressions of delaminated corrugated cardboard all making appearances on his surfaces. The experiments feel intimate, on a human scale, taking cues from artists like Sigmar Polke who used materials that were typical, kitschy or wrong to create paintings that poked fun at consumer culture and the pieties of bourgeois art tastes. The paintings nod to the Pattern and Decoration (P&D) movement and utilize fantastical perspectives and pay close attention to small details, recalling artists such as Florine Stettheimer and Patrick Nagel, as well as the vivid graphic design of the 1980s. More than anything, the work grows out of Reeder's voracious drawing practice. Made anywhere and anytime, the drawings feel intimate and playful, created primarily for his own amusement and as a codex for ideas that often find their way into his paintings.