Li Xu: Dogs of Dark presents paintings that inhabit the ambiguous space between human and canine bodies, drawing on a recent collection of visceral poems written during time spent in New York City. Anthropomorphic figures occupy mysterious, dreamlike scenes where abstract floors, walls, and objects assert themselves with equal perplexity. Inscrutable faces — subtle yet intransigent in brushwork — evoke the psychological weight of Bacon, Freud, and Schiele, alternately menacing, seducing, and morose. Domesticated since prehistory, the dog becomes a lens through which social yearning and instinct-driven nature are examined in fragmented, unsettling tableaux.
