NEW YORK, NY.- Miles McEnery Gallery is presenting an exhibition of paintings by Alex Dodge and Tom LaDuke. We Contain Multitudes opened on 28 April and will remain on view through 4 June 2022. This is the inaugural exhibition of Miles McEnery Gallery’s fourth and newest gallery location at 525 West 22nd Street, contributing to a combined Chelsea presence of nearly 26,000 square feet. The fourth gallery is ideally situated a few doors down from the current 511 and 515 locations. The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue featuring an essay by Evan Moffitt.

Moffitt declares, “Few painters appear to be as different as Alex Dodge and Tom LaDuke. Dodge’s crisply rendered, rumpled patterns, stenciled so that they acquire the texture of their referent fabrics, have a unique physical presence that invites our touch. By contrast, LaDuke’s juxtaposition of abstract gestures–some brushed impasto, others poured or stenciled–atop foggy, inscrutable landscapes seem to place the physical world just out of reach, as if behind a pane of steamed glass. Both painters, however, achieve their results through a precise methodology that filters the material through the digital and then back out onto the analog surface of a canvas. Much of their work develops in the virtual space of Blender, a 3D computer graphics software program that synthesizes drawings and provides the tools to distort them.”

LaDuke’s paintings are painstakingly constructed, offering multiple layers to absorb, with their own references and meanings. The works situate the viewer in an illusory middle dimension, suspended between many levels of imagination. Forms tend to be screened, stacked, and occluded among layers of fused, brightly colored impasto brushstrokes. The paintings encourage viewers to cautiously examine and reorient themselves in a world where both the real and unreal coalesce.

Dodge’s paintings blur the line between real and imagined, the digital and the analog, leaving the viewer with an in- between realm, neither here nor there. The artist begins with a hand drawing, either in pencil or charcoal, to get the basic form of his image, and, from there, he generates a 3D-rendered model. Once satisfied with the computer image, Dodge translates his creation with laser-cut stencils to apply thick paint in small sections by hand–exploring the dialogue between the physical and virtual world.

Seeking to rethink what is possible in painting, LaDuke and Dodge produce works that are liberated from broad generalizations and delve into the present moment where life unfolds. Their work begins in the digital space and offers vastly different views of virtual dreams that are each sincerely rendered and manifested in the analog with paint on canvas.

ALEX DODGE (b. 1977, Denver, CO) received his Masters of Professional Studies from New York University and his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Rhode Island School of Design.

Select solo exhibitions include “Laundry Day: It All Comes Out In The Wash,” Maki Fine Arts, Tokyo, Japan; “Remote Working,” Faro Collection, Tokyo, Japan; Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, New York, NY; “The Trauma of Information,” Maki Fine Art, Tokyo, Japan; “Whisper in My Ear and Tell Me Softly,” Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, New York, NY; “The Infallibility of Lies,” Halsey McKay Gallery, East Hampton, NY; “Love May Fail, But Courtesy Will Prevail,” Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, New York, NY; Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery at NADA Miami Beach, Miami Beach, FL; “Artists@Grinnell,” Bucksbaum Center for the Arts, Grinnell College, Grinnell, IA, and “Generative,” Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, New York, NY.

Select group exhibitions include “Alex Dodge & Tom LaDuke: We Contain Multitudes,” Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY; “Around the World, Around the World” (curated by William Leung), Woaw Gallery, Hong Kong, China; and “From Morning ‘Til Night, We Should Never Rely on a Single Thing,” Philip Martin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA.

His work is included in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; New York Public Library, New York, NY; Pizzuti Collection, Columbus, OH; and The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, among others.

Dodge lives in Tokyo, Japan.

TOM LaDUKE (b. 1963, Holyoke, MA) received his Master of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the California State University, Fullerton.

Select solo exhibitions include Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY; “New Work,” CRG Gallery, New York, NY; “Candles and Lasers,” Kohn Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; “Tom LaDuke,” CRG Gallery, New York, NY; “eyes for voice,” CRG Gallery, New York, NY; and “run generator,” Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA.

Select group exhibitions include “Alex Dodge & Tom LaDuke: We Contain Multitudes,” Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY; “It’s All About Water” (curated by Elizabeth Fiore & Melissa Feldman), The Storefront, Bellport, NY; “Belief in Giants,” Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY; “Loose Canon,” L.A. Louver, Venice, CA; “Inaugural Exhibition,” CRG Gallery, New York, NY; and “New Art For A New Century: Contemporary Acquisitions,” Orange County Museum of Art, Santa Ana, California.

His work is included in the collections of The Minnesota Museum of American Art, St. Paul, MN; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA; Pizzuti Collection, Columbus, OH; Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR; and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY, among others.

He is the recipient of the Peter S. Reed Foundation Grant and the Trustee Merit Scholarship from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

LaDuke lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.