Editor's Pick: Michael Childress Equivalents

Superbloom, 2022 Acrylic on unprimed canvas 20 x 20 in

Michael Childress’ solo exhibition, Equivalents, currently on view at Hesse Flatow, New York, presents kaleidoscopic paintings of symmetry and colour. In these works, form grows through system and scale, adhering to the transient yet codified inclinations of Nature. Spheres point us towards the intuition of wholeness, knowing all the while that wholeness is an exquisite impossibility. Childress’ paintings inherit the legacy left by the Flammarion engraving, an 1888 depiction of a man at the edge of the earth, his head protruding to the point where the sky touches the Earth, an allegory for a mystical quest for knowledge. We as his viewers are invited to peak beyond the known stratosphere and are permitted to witness the moment of transition between the nothing-that-was-not and the something-that-is. In these moments, we become the observers – and as the observers, we become responsible for reality itself. Equivalents is on view until July 1.