Winston Wächter Fine Art is pleased to announce an exhibition of new work by painter Tony Scherman. Those viewers familiar with Scherman’s work will recognize his signature style of portraiture in which disembodied faces emerge from inky black backgrounds. One cannot help but be transfixed by the powerful gazes of Scherman’s subjects. Scherman’s technique is integral to his project; he builds up layer upon layer of colored wax, dripping, pouring, scraping and molding it until the surfaces of his canvases are as powerful and arresting as the subjects themselves. This description remains true for this new series of paintings, only here the faces do not belong to celebrities or historical figures, but an array of wild and domestic animals.

While viewers will be tempted to attribute specific emotions and intentions to these animals (possibly mimicking their own state of mind), Scherman hopes one will resist this temptation. There is no implicit narrative in this show, no rhetoric or didactic intent. There is just a room filled with eyes, silent and confrontational. If these paintings are collectively about anything, it is the feeling engendered by being caught in the gaze of all of these unknowable subjects. One may want to read anger, trepidation or sweetness in their faces, but they are ultimately other, and thus illegible. Nevertheless, they are unmistakably present, sharing space with us, and they demand to be recognized.