In a suite of ten drawings, Jeff Ladouceur channels despair into absurdity. His tragic figures whither and mope across an unwelcoming tundra with comic resignation. Hobo-esque “Schmos,” men whom curator Jordan Strom notes, “stretch and contort… more by existential accident than heroic design,” are tangled, trampled, and beaten down. Piles of their blue-shirted corpses are carried away on the back of a woolly mammoth. Elsewhere, figures and disembodied heads float through groundless voids of white paper. “Ladouceur’s images are always in metamorphosis, evapo-transpiring into clouds of steam and semi-solid anthropomorphic forms lifting off the ground” (Strom).

Do The Apocalypse is Ladouceur’s third solo exhibition at ZieherSmith. Throughout the summer of 2008, his monumental inflatable sculpture, Floater, was tangled in the neo-classical façade of the Vancouver Art Gallery. Other projects include a recent solo exhibition at the Taché-Lévy Gallery, Brussels and a forthcoming exhibition at Richard Heller Gallery, Los Angeles.

In the side gallery, an exhibition of paintings marks the joint efforts of ZieherSmith artists Eddie Martinez and Chuck Webster. The results of a practice begun soon after meeting in 2006, the collaborations are evidence of both artists’ studio processes, which are distinct yet united by constant mark-making and experimentation. The results are four iconic figures, Soothsayer, Lionheart, Pug Soldier, and Owl Bat which attest to the artists’ signature tropes and forms–Martinez with the figurative and still life traditions and Webster in his own unique approach to formal abstraction. The artists have also completed several collaborative works on paper.

ZieherSmith and PictureBox Inc. recently published Chuck Webster / Eddie Martinez, a two-volume set featuring both solo works and collaborative pieces, which is currently available at the gallery. The artists have each had several solo shows at ZieherSmith, and have been shown internationally in various museum and gallery exhibitions.