Feldsott

Wienholt Projects is pleased to announce My Responsibility, a solo exhibition of California-based painter Feldsott, presenting drawings, paintings and sculptures spanning the 1970s to the present.

The title My Responsibility, taken from a 1997 drawing on school paper, reflects Feldsott’s simultaneously irreverent, and gravely sincere, treatment of his subjects. Using the visual language of neo-expressionism, and infusing it with shamanic elements, Feldsott often paints literal and frank depictions of recognizable and violent current events, as in Abu Ghraib and Burning Monk. The works respond to the typically cold and detached treatment of their subjects with unmitigated feeling, conveying a lack of hesitation in their expressionistic brushstrokes. In some works, handmade paints are thickly layered and infused with human hair, plant materials, and medicinal elements, materials which seem chosen for their symbolic capacity for empathy.

(Left to right): Who’s Your Enemy, 2013, Mixed media on wood panel, 72 x 66 in , Untitled Painting w/ Accused + Jury + Shadow Men, 1986, Mixed media installation

The exhibition, like Feldsott’s depictions of humanity, is nonlinear. Works from the 1970s and beyond are interspersed with paintings made this year, serving the sense of timelessness suggested by the work, in which ancient spirituality and gestures mimetic of cave paintings converge with images of present-day people, weapons, and events. This broad timeline of Feldsott’s subjects and stylistic influences asserts a throughline between ancient and contemporary beliefs and systems of power. The continued relevance of these topics demonstrates a central theme of Feldsott’s work: these problems are cyclical. 

(Left to right): Always Forever In The Hands of God, 2017, Mixed media painting on 4-ply strathmore archival paper, 40 x 32 in, Untitled Painting w/ Praying Man + Tank, 2017, Mixed media painting on 4-ply strathmore archival paper, 40 x 32 in, Abu Ghraib, 2006, Mixed media on canvas, 72 x 60 in

About Feldsott

Feldsott (b. Chicago, IL, 1954) is a painter based in Northern California. He studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (undergraduate) and the California College of the Arts (graduate). Feldsott’s works have been exhibited at museums including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1975 and 1979); the Minnesota Museum of Art, Minneapolis, MN (1978); Casa Museo Guayasamín, Quito, Ecuador (2002); the Bolinas Museum, Bolinas, CA (2003); the Mexican Museum, San Francisco, CA (2017); and the de Young Museum, San Francisco, CA (2020); and galleries including Michael Wyman Gallery, Chicago, IL (1974); Marianne Deson Gallery, Chicago, IL (1978); Paul Mahder Gallery, San Francisco, CA (2008 and 2011); Vendome Gallery, New York, NY (2013); GAG Projects, Adelaide, Australia (2020); and Amelie A. Wallace Gallery, SUNY Old Westbury, New York, NY (2022). 

Website: www.feldsott.com
Instagram: @feldsott