‘SMOKE’ explores our range of emotional response to fire, with its potential for utter destruction and its awe-inspiring power. It is a glowing, consumptive force of nature, smolderingly beautiful and loath to be contained. But fire becomes a malignancy- indiscriminately destructive and indifferent to our suffering- when we are attached to a burning place or sympathetic to those who are.

 

The paintings and drawings of Molesky and Martin explore that tension between wonder and fear, giving nod to the mesmerizing beauty of fire even while acknowledging the destruction it can often cause for human beings.

 

David Molesky

 

David Moleskyʼs paintings of the burning hills of Los Angeles are oddly peaceful. A classically trained oil painter, he renders the city, landscape, and plasmic fire with equal mastery. But what is most striking about this series is the quiet reverence that it instills in the viewer- while gazing at natural disaster. Transcending any feelings of impending doom, Moleskyʼs paintings lend themselves toward contemplation of the immense power of nature and manʼs delicate place within it.

 

Laurent Martin

 

Alternately, the drawings of Laurent Martin are bursting with energy. Martin explores the same photograph, of the same burning building, over and over again, emphasizing different elements of the scene in each drawing. Where one drawing may focus on the structure, one on the crowd, and one on the raw energy of the fire, all drawings in the series are dynamic and embody the excitement of witnessing an unstoppable blaze.