John Himmelfarb's 'Geared Up' Exhibition at Luise Ross Gallery Features Sculptural Truck Metaphors

John Himmelfarb presents his first sculptural works in 'Geared Up' at Luise Ross Gallery from February 18 to April 17. The Chicago-based painter and printmaker explores trucks as metaphors for emotional baggage through mixed-media pieces. His 2010 plywood sculpture 'Geared Up' displays interlocking planes atop tire-like disks with enigmatic protrusions. A 2008 bronze titled 'Mesa' merges truck forms with eroded landforms, creating a somber hybrid object. The exhibition includes earlier works like 'Perseverance' (2006), an eleven-foot painting depicting an overloaded semi-truck. Other notable pieces are 'Fortitude,' a small truck with simian features, and 'Lander,' a slab-built ceramic displayed in a back room. Himmelfarb's 2009 lithograph 'Double Negative' shows a flatbed truck piled with ambiguous objects. His artistic approach references both Red Grooms and Isamu Noguchi while maintaining an existentialist perspective distinct from 1970s trucker culture.