A series of heavily textured paintings by artist Caleb Weintraub. Based in Bloomington, Indiana, Weintraub holds a BFA from Boston University and an MFA from the University of Pennsylvania. His practice involves creating elaborate and highly saturated scenes with sculpted surfaces—paint cast in real and fake shadows—using a combination of oil, acrylic, epoxy clay, aqua-resin, and foam on shaped panels. Playing with a sense of exaggerated depth and relief, Weintraub’s work encroaches on the viewer with an energy and imagery rooted in the classical, even the carnivalesque, yet rendered with a distinctly anachronistic quality.

“The symbols arrive out of order. Sabers from a reliquary. Motorcycles. Heraldic armor and leather jackets. A martyr’s pose holding a chainsaw. Some passages are made from salvaged paint, scraps from abandoned palettes and earlier paintings, cut away and recombined. The figures reach for force, selfhood, ceremony, or protection, and the inheritance is clumsy. It comes through what we wear and how we move, through emblems and tattoos and horses and motorcycles. A motorcycle gang at the holiday table. Marauders quietly watering the houseplants. Horse and motorcycle are interchangeable. Figures cross deserts, pass through mountain divides, arrive in places that are identical or nearly identical but each time slightly disrupted and askew. Snakes slip through the rubble. Tooth-shaped forms surface in the moldings. The animals externalize what the figures feel. The birds are messengers and omens and witnesses. The titles mix sports commentary, action film, and devotional speech. Clutch Decision. Parry Parry Pray. In Good Faith. Flock and Awe. A throttle, a fang, and a feather are instruments for closing distance.”