David Humphrey's Acrylic Paintings Explore Abstraction and Irony at Fredericks & Freiser

David Humphrey presented new paintings at Fredericks & Freiser in New York City from November 28, 2012 to January 19, 2013. The exhibition featured large, loose works characterized by sweeping gestures and thin acrylic glazes. In pieces like Scratcher (2012), a sleeping orange figure is bisected by aggressive brushstrokes reminiscent of Cy Twombly or Albert Oehlen, while a black cat claws at the form. Humphrey's approach engages with postmodern irony and critical distance, questioning abstraction's traditional aspirations. He references his own 1994 review of Carl Ostendarp and commentary on Jörg Immendorff to contextualize his method. Works such as Kicking Back (2012) incorporate smudges as pictorial elements, and The Red and the Blue (2012) pays homage to Willem de Kooning. Changing Sneakers (2011) juxtaposes abstract chaos with a photorealistic figure, evoking themes from The Graduate. Humphrey's shift to acrylics reflects a focus on fast-drying mediums suited to rapid execution, embracing their plastic qualities in a polymerized world.