Candy Apple Grey

Henry Fey

October 11th - November 8th

GGLA is pleased to present Candy Apple Grey, a solo exhibition by Los Angeles-based artist Henry Fey, the artist’s second exhibition with the gallery and his first solo exhibition in his hometown. And much like the reference embedded in the exhibition’s title, Hüsker Dü’s 1986 album of the same name, Fey presents an installation and a new body of work that is a rich lattice of cultural references and visual ephemera, broken down into groupings and striations of color that deconstruct and reconstruct the ways in which we process our surrounding world both visually and culturally. 

As the viewer enters the gallery, they’re immediately struck by the transformation of the space, with the floor painted a rich blue, and the gallery’s columns painted with solid coats of vibrant green or red. Much like the artist’s painstaking painting techniques which were developed from his background in printing and printmaking, the physicality of the gallery has gone through a RGB color separation similar to the images that Fey uses. The method of deconstruction and reconstruction is a recurring theme within the artist’s work, relating to everything from how images are processed and readied for painting, to the ways in which meaning is layered within a given work. This approach is on full view within My Cherie Amour, a cherry red composition dotted with five floating images–Cher’s face at the center, with a pair of cherries, a pint of Cherry Garcia, a bottle of Sherry and an image of “Chairry” the beloved anthropomorphic chair from “Pee Wee’s Playhouse”. The painting is both a lighthearted verbal free association, and a flexing of the complex method of airbrushing over printed vinyl stencils that are isolated for each color within the composition. The painting encapsulates both the cool and easy humor and conceptual and process-based rigor that are equally on view within Candy Apple Grey.

Within another of Fey’s dense compositions simply titled Promo Painting, a ying yang red and black apple symbol floats at the painting’s center, above a crop of the Gary Panter logo for the synth punk band The Screamers, the text from Hüsker Dü’s 1986 album hangs at the top of the canvas, and the rest of the space is consumed by punchy logos for Golden Acrylics, Orafol vinyl and a tongue in cheek Caution sign. The work functions as Fey’s version of the over the top hyper-branding of Nascar or motocross aesthetics, yet the apple ying-yang symbol hovers with a particular resonance within this given painting and the exhibition as a whole–it’s within the contrasts and dualities that abound throughout the exhibition that Fey’s paintings truly shine. Candy Apple Grey is a meditation on our over-saturated image and media landscape, and many of the paintings and imagery used reflect this over-abundance, yet it can’t be forgotten how intentional the artist’s choices in imagery are, or how painstakingly slow the process of breaking down a digital image and recreating it in its final cross hatched painted form truly can be. And it’s within this very deliberate and contemplative process through which the artist is able to slow down and for the time being halt the breakneck flow of information, inviting the viewer into this same liminal space in which we can leisurely and thoughtfully dissect and reconstitute imagery, semiotics, and meaning together.

Henry Fey, , 2024, Acrylic on canvas over panel, 48 x 48 in. |

Henry Fey, Cherie Amour, 2024, Acrylic on canvas over panel, 48 x 48 in. |

Henry Fey, The Rescuers, 2024, Acrylic on canvas over panel, 24 x 18 in. |