SUMMER WHEAT: HI - LO    Feb 3 - Mar 17, 2012

Hi – Lo, on view from February 3rd to March 17th, is a comical, yet crucial comparison of upper and lower classes. This body of work encourages broader understanding of these extreme classes. Caricatures of aristocrats and peasants are "perfect deformities" of the timeless and incredibly real issues regarding class structure. The paintings suggest similarities between these seemingly different people. This sameness is apparent in Wheat's smart, confident use of color. There is equilibrium between horror, vulgarity, bastardization and sophistication, eloquence and retainment.

Wheat explores a varied range of textures and patterns from observing southern antebellum quilts, transforming the grotesque into elegant passages of ornamentation and amplified color. The few verse the many conspiring to comment and corporatize all demeanors—high, low, and the mud in between. Rilke described the disinherited as “ones to whom neither the past nor the future belongs.” Wheat, a humorist and slight satirist, combines what humans find innately funny with the thrill and disturbing nature of horror to create a full-bodied commentary on class in our society. Disharmony, is there anywhere where there is none? These works are not divorced from the capacity of people to act.

Summer Wheat (b. 1977, Oklahoma, OK) received a Masters of Fine Art from the Savannah College of Art and Design. Samsøn gave Wheat’s work a solo booth at VoltaNY in 2011. She was a resident artist at the Triangle Arts Association (Brooklyn, NY). Her work is currently included in The Calendar’s Tale curated by Lynne Cooney at the 808 Gallery in Boston University. She has an upcoming solo at Valentine (Queens, NY).