Dangling Man
18 December 2020 – 5 February 2021
Michael Hilsman’s exhibition of recent paintings derives its title from the 1944 novel Dangling Man by Saul Bellow in which the protagonist, a young man named Joseph, searches for meaning as he awaits being drafted into the army. He experiences an intellectual and spiritual crisis as he is suspended between two realities.
In Hilsman’s paintings, figures and objects are literally and metaphorically “dangling.” In the painting titled “Dangling Man With Cactus” a delicate piece of string levitates next to a human figure that is precariously suspended. In another work gravity becomes malleable as a kite weighs down the foot of a figure while an untethered feather floats nearby.
Michael Hilsman, Dangling Man With Cactus, 2020
These works employ their own logic, in color and form, lulling the viewer into a dream state that is pierced with moments of agitation: in one painting a toe is about to be pricked by a cactus needle, in another painting a pair of scissors stands strangely close to a figure’s ear.
The figures and objects in the paintings remain fragile, dislocated and obscured; the fact that they are left “dangling” is a metaphor for the human condition.