Jon Legere: Maelstrom

Maelstrom was a solo show of recent paintings by Jon Legere, a Bermudian artist based in Brooklyn who works across video, paint, collage, photography, performance and sculpture. His collaborative video installation TURNS, made with his mentor Margot Lovejoy, was part of the 2002 Whitney Biennial, and earlier in 2015 he had been one of the collagists in Sugarlift's Cut & Paste.

Legere builds his paintings from paper cut out of ordinary publications picked up at stores, coffee shops and newsstands, layered with acrylic and oil. He cuts away anything recognizable, so what is left is fluorescent color, sliced fragments and spikes of architectural form, thrown across the surface as if by a storm. Sugarlift's announcement called the work "a form of image recycling. A second life for decapitated selfies." The show paired large canvases and wood panels, among them the 80-inch-wide Hyperbole, Cheek to Cheek, South Wind and Legerdemain, with framed works on paper and Maelstrom Six, a set of six small panels.

The opening on October 9, 2015 took place in the middle of the worst storm Bushwick had seen in a while, which suited the title. Guests braved the rain, Braven Brewing Company poured the beer, and Nico Schinco photographed the evening. The show ran through November 4.