Lament, 2010

Ceremonies of Mud New Paintings by Alfredo Gisholt
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Mexican-born painter Alfredo Gisholt exhibits a new series of oil paintings that draw connections to Goya, Matisse and Picasso. The compositions are populated with eccentric casts of characters who converge in ritualistic processionals and parades.  What is the series of events that led these strange participants to end up in chaotic pile-ups? In a number of the works, celebratory occasions result in violence. Gisholt’s paintings, executed in dynamic, varied brushstrokes and bold colors, are both humorous and sinister. He has packed each work with symbolic imagery, tragic and particularly resonant in our present time of political upheaval and war.

Gisholt attended Academia de San Carlos in Mexico City and received his MFA from Boston University. He was awarded both a Guggenheim Fellowship and Dedalus Foundation Fellowship. Gisholt currently serves as Assistant Professor of painting and printmaking at Brandeis University.