Contributed by Liz Scheer / In his new exhibition “Sundowning“at Freight + Volume, Miles Debas utilizes a mixture of collaged and sculptural elements to create works that are at once whimsical and intellectually provocative. The press release says his hanging sculptures adhere to a “dream-like logic,” and that’s an apt statement. The bits of cloth and color are like snapped-off impressions – pieces of waking life – that cohere into a whole that implies but falls short of legibility. Describing a painting as “dream-like,” though, suggests that it is surrealist. With their floating symbols and jewel-toned colors, Debas’ constructions could certainly be so characterized. But there’s a way to read these pieces not as representations of the unconscious but rather as odes to moments of agreeable miscommunication: instances when conversation that leads nowhere in particular is nonetheless intensely satisfying.