Michael Hermesh: Metaphors for Liars
Petley Jones Gallery, Vancouver, BC - June 21 – July 9
In a statement accompanying his exhibition Metaphors for Liars, Michael Hermesh writes, “I do not believe that there is a state of grace in life. Life is life—it is dynamic and it is always a struggle.” This struggle is apparent in Hermesh’s illustrative paintings, which often focus on solitary figures engaged in humorous, sometimes tender, situations. Yet it is in these situations that a gracefulness can be detected. But if not a form of grace, then its predicates—resignation and acceptance.
I Am a Cage in Search of a Bird—Kafka (2025) features a pair of human legs supporting a cage with a blackbird on top, its impressionistic shadow cast over a white background. As in much of Kafka’s writing (from “The Metamorphosis” to “In the Penal Colony”), philosophical quandaries begin with distortions of the body.
In Prairie Memories (2025), two young women, more joyous than graceful, ride outsized unicycles over an empty road bordered by wheat fields. Here, the action is too fantastic for the work’s title, and as such, more an exaggeration (a white lie) than a memory.
In Liminal (The Event) (2025), a balloon carries a suitcase over a sparsely clouded sky, a scene that recalls the work of surrealist René Magritte, if not the union of what weighs us down (baggage) and what allows us to rise above our situations.
All three works carry with them a tension of sorts: an unresolved quest, a contradicted recollection and those in-between places we succumb to in our struggle to be free.
Opening reception June 21, 1–4pm
