OPENING RECEPTION: SATURDAY, MAY 3, 8 – 11pm

Merry Karnowsky Gallery is proud to present Mere Inches, a solo exhibition of new works by Philadelphia-based painter and installation artist Jim Houser. The entire gallery is transformed into a world of crisp, colorful patterns coalescing in floral motifs, fragmented stories and overused words. Also populating Houser’s unique work are brightly colored humans and animals with oversized (or undersized) heads.

The intricacy of Houser’s work reflects the complexity of the human mind. His fascination with speech, emotion, and the human need to communicate permeate the canvas. Houser is a wordsmith who observes the ironies of the human condition and cuts them down to a single word, phrase or symbol. His playful canvases, loaded with meaning, often read more like short stories or poems than traditional paintings.

Houser’s palette is natural yet somehow still synthetic, a refection of the lives we are living. From the smallest bud to the largest elephant, the deepest ocean to the tallest mountain, he asks us to differentiate truth from deception and question our place in society, as well as our place in the universe.

Houser’s work has shown all over the United States and in Japan. He has been featured in Juxtapoz, Swindle and Art Prostitute. Houser is well known for his design work for Toy Machine skateboards, designarium and Nike. Houser’s first book, Babel, which catalogs his life in the arts, was published by Gingko Press in 2005.