Contributed by Jonathan Stevenson / The lithely flirtatious and somewhat Boschian primary elements in Jeffrey Bishop’s acrylic-and-collage Sidewinder series of screenprint-painting-collages – now on display at McKenzie Fine Art – are centered, unabashed things-about-town, decidedly abstract but, in their verticality and jazzy affect, firmly digital-biomorphic. Depending on ambient color, line, and pattern, one could scan as a pterodactyl, a seahorse, a climbing vine, a dog leaping paws-up to its master, a rearing ram, a cockroach, a pole-dancer, Daffy Duck, or The Thin White Duke. Gently increasing the sense of gravity, a tandem of acrylic-and-ink paintings from the Fathom Compression series seems to meld the humanoid and the geological, not unlike Hilary Harnischfeger’s uncannily integrated ceramic sculptures and reliefs (currently on view at Uffner & Liu). These two series are handsomely grotesque and vice-versa, combining the graphic precision of Pop Art and the psychedelic sensibility of Surrealism. His work from the Interval series, also acrylic and collage, is more sedate and referential, one canvas perhaps even Christological, but all four pieces retain the out-there vibe of dimensional permeability.
16 x 12 inches
acrylic and ink on synthetic substrate, 60 x 44 inches
acrylic and ink on synthetic substrate, 72 x 60 inches
Mason Dowling has a complementary but similarly restive attitude. If Bishop is interested in strange creatures’ infiltration into this world, Dowling may be looking to decipher familiar ones’ efforts at exfiltration from it. Ghosts or the undead are everywhere in his tactile acrylic-and-paper paintings, perhaps most overtly Chimayo, Ptarmigan, Revelator, and Tinkertown. Like Bishop’s abstract entities, Dowling’s apparitions are invariably in motion, but beneath a suppressive veil. The visual resonances are clearly anthropological as well as geological and cosmological, lending the work historical weight next to its transcendental quality. In works like Barnacle Candy and Waltzing with Bears, color, line, and Dowling’s distinctive painterliness bring these qualities together most vividly, whereas Color Confinement provides an austere counterpoint, as if to demonstrate the denuding quality of obfuscation, denial, or sublimation.
McKenzie Fine Art has established a strong brand of predominantly hard-edge geometric abstraction. The pristinely rendered work in this two-person show is loosely tethered to that core aesthetic. But Bishop and Dowling’s phantoms, worldly in one way or another, range farther, striking a fine and satisfying balance between expectation and departure.
“Jeffrey Bishop and Mason Dowling,” McKenzie Fine Art Inc., 55 Orchard Street, New York, NY. Through March 8, 2026.
About the author: Jonathan Stevenson is a New York-based policy analyst, editor, and writer, contributing to the New York Times, the New York Review of Books, and Politico, among other publications, and a regular contributor to Two Coats of Paint.
