Remember the telephone? Not the one in your pocket, but the one that used to sit on a table and ring off its hook. The shared family phone, the smooth, heavy plastic, the particular grain of the voice; an imaginative space opens up for both listener and caller. A private line, or a public phone booth—dialogue could be an adventure. There was a real feeling of suspense when the telephone rang.

The eleven artists in Red Telephone are speaking to each other across the room, across generations, across subject matter, and through shared materiality. These are talkative paintings that will engage you in long conversations about philosophy, race, religion, magic, trees, geometry, politics, and relationships. Each painting is as unique as its maker, and each surface bears the imprint of a touch, a hand mark. I believe that the ubiquitous screen has done much damage to an expanded sense of “surface” – what a surface can be, the potential of a surface. The best surfaces have a depth to them. I don’t mean a literal depth, but a metaphorical depth. There is a feeling of life moving and changing beyond the painted plane. The thinnest membrane of paint can be a skin that is sensitive enough to convey a body of knowledge, feeling, and history. All of the artists in RED TELEPHONE are intimately aware of surface, material, object, and the metaphysical medium. They offer their touch, they offer their loves, they offer their meditations, they offer their gemstones, they offer a secret code, they offer a homage to ancestors, and above all they offer a heart beat.

The telephone is ringing for you…