Contributed by Marcy Rosewater / “Cautionary Tales,” a retrospective of works on paper by artist Harvey Weiss, is located in Holden House, a grand old mansion in historic Newburgh, New York, now restored and hosting occasional art exhibitions. Both the work and the house beckon melancholic remembrances. The show, comprising paintings, drawings, collaged and manipulated magazine pages, and photographs, spans almost 40 years, and presents twelve distinct series. Each begins with a familiar image that undergoes a transformation revealing the artist’s emotional, physical, conceptual, and spiritual processing, yielding a narrative duet between what is seen and what is felt.
Memorial is a series of rough charcoal drawings placed high on the wall, like sentinels. Emulating yearbook photos, the faces are frozen in time, to see as well as to be seen. Depicting the victims of serial killer John Wayne Gacy, who targeted men and boys in the 1970s, they set a tone of somber, silent reflection.
The title Effects refers to clothing and sundry items Weiss inherited from friends lost to AIDS. Using pages from clothing catalogs, he carefully obscures the image with a viscous slurry of paint and resin that suggests cocooned body parts, simultaneously hiding and protecting them. Despite the care taken, drips form and edges bleed, leaving a distinct emotional stamp. In the late 1990s, I curated a show called “The Processed Image” that included works from this series. Seeing that work again for the first time in decades, I am most struck by its muted yet visible sense of sadness.
Likewise, Shockwaves illuminates what is ordinarily unseen. Enlisting photos of interiors from trade magazines, Weiss acts as a kind of shaman, reorganizing familiar images to expose hidden currents, forces, and fields that simultaneously plumb and expand our perceptions and understandings.
In the portraits of the Supermodels series, Weiss overlays photographs of friends’ faces with projected images of professional models. The resulting new pictures are grotesquely fleshy and fractured – like cubist constructs, disturbing because of their confusing realism. They serve as metaphors for human interaction, asking who we are really looking at and who we are striving to be.
The After the Storm; Sheds series consists of minimal line drawings depicting damage to buildings in Weiss’s neighborhood from a freak windstorm. Most of his work starts with unremarkable subject matter and superimposes a personal response. By contrast, the work in this series begins with images of things that have already been put through the wringer. Using crisp and precise ink-ruled lines, Weiss cleans up and tames chaotic scenes.
String Theory also provides order, this time to random groups of people photographed in public spaces, thread tracing otherwise invisible connections and groupings, based largely on an ascending polygonal geometry. This quiet and inward-looking show addresses many forms of absence. Weiss’s diverse body of work ,left me generally wistful, and appreciative of how movingly this artist has processed complex experiences, emotions, and times.
“Harvey Weiss: Cautionary Tales,” Holden House, 85 Grand Street, Newburgh, NY. Through September 1, 2025. By appointment: assaf@leibdesigns.com, weisstudio@optonline.net
About the author: Marcy Rosewater is a painter based in Brooklyn and the Lower Hudson Valley. Her upcoming show at 490 Atlantic Gallery in Brooklyn is scheduled for November 2025. Follow her on Instagram @marcyrosewater
A nice write up of a very powerful body of work. And hearing Harvey speak at the opening was very insightful.