Dan Attoe is a contemporary figurative master whose work is savvy enough to somehow fit with others in this stable. “I'm done worryin' about shit” has a heavy existential bent without sacrificing humor altogether: each piece, in fact, seems to oscillate between those points, either through the larger images or by way of the blunt thoughts painted with a tiny brush of silver paint across the heavily layered, luminescent surfaces.“Hotel Party” features a middle aged woman sitting in front of a glass coffee table with coke lines. In the midst of her high she is accompanied by the just discernable words, “I’ve forgotten how to think like a kid.” A small gem in the gallery’s office depicts a customer in shadow at the counter of a convenience store. The clerk says to him, “You’ve been here before. A pack a Marbs. It’s always the same.” The tour de force of the show (and the largest at 48” square), “Dumbfucks at the Beach,” features a fantastically picturesque scene of bright sun, beautiful waves and a rocky cliff coastline, while its inhabitants, by sea and by sand, are for the most part too enmeshed in their own neuroses to absorb the moment. In Attoe’s world beauty and majesty is all around us, but somebody’s gotta paint them.
