Gas, Grass, or Ass (No One Rides for Free)

Underworld cool is somewhere between a Hell’s Angels hangout and an empty garage filled with butane. Resin covered leather on blood-red haunt the walls like roadkill trophies picked up by a leather-faced fanboy. Space between sprawls is a portal into the shadow realm of boomer cool set to a soundtrack of a George Jones jukebox. I’ve always wondered where Dennis Hopper’s soul ended up, and it’s probably shooting around a red neon Los Angeles river like bloody coke in the membranous walls of the devil's nose. Cops guard the horizons of our endless freeway destiny, and passing a squad car is playing fetch with Cerberus. The thin blue walls of boy scout badge-wearing state troopers in this context are more likely to run into hay bales than perpetuate the police state they represent. The curio cabinet is a loose collection of ironic “coolisms” Manson murders, shanks, collection of velvet dog paintings occupy a hip curiosity store of some metropolis rather than the reality of desolate places occupying inbetwix dimensions between sprawls. The horizontal expanse of I10 traverses the gallery with the wall to wall paintings glistening in the dim light. The shapes on the resin-soaked canvas blur somewhere between landscape and topographical. “Sweet Perfume” is the journey of sorts through a VHS catalog of leather-face on his day off. It’s no gritty gore-fest instead it’s home movies of fringe roleplaying. Will Boone: The Highway Hex is an exploration of the subterranean depths of Hell’s waiting room equipped with all the distractions to ward off the fear of the real Beast. The physical distance of the western expanse is a place ripe for psychological discovery, and long-distance trekking lends itself ego death through sheer boredom. State lines, county lines, and judicial districts are a blur in the mirage on sun-soaked asphalt of the great American road trip. Its a crossfade of roadways distinguished by the physical attributes that the freeway cuts through. You have the physicality of landscape and in parts the total absence of landmark and meaning which is there if weren’t for all the roadside distractions. The scale of the freeway system dominates the terrain, and the long arm of the law dominates its travelers. The connection between American cities is less of a harmonious circulatory system and more of a mainline between two neuron clusters with their own incomplete secret language.  At times, The Highway Hex is more The Searchers and less searching and it gives the gallery a curated pop culture experience instead of an extraplanar exploration of the nether world of transience. I am hopeful that there is some lone highway patrolman missing his duds with his pants falling off his ass because someone stole his sick snakeskin belt and put it out there on the horizon of nowhere.