James Hyde
FIVE FRESCOES
Listed in clockwise order from upper left
Part, 1993
Fresco on styrofoam
12 x 9.5 x 6 inches
Part 2, 2002
Fresco on styrofoam
14 x 18 x 10.75 inches
Part, 2000-2021
Fresco on styrofoam
12.5 x 13.25 x 8.25 inches
Part 1, 2002
Fresco on styrofoam
15 x 10 x 7.5 inches
Part (scrubby), 2002-2021
Fresco on scrubby pads and concrete
8 x 10 x 11.75 inches
Like ruins from some future archaeological dig, James Hyde’s nonrepresentational “frescoes” on large chunks of Styrofoam give suggestive shape to the fleeting landscape of the present. Unlike much theory-fueled abstract painting, Hyde’s works are at once elusive and materialist, playful and rigorous. They manage to carve out a paradoxical place for themselves by letting the present slip silently away, but not without surreptitiously exerting a slight spin on its invisible trajectory.
-David Pagel