Don Eddy’s new exhibition with Nancy Hoffman Gallery is a treasure trove of compression, complexity, color and texture. Typically grouped with the photorealists who came to prominence in the 70s (although Eddy has distanced himself from the term), Eddy is known as a painter who is obsessed with light. Here that ethereal quality comes across as rich and gorgeous, otherworldly and quotidian all at once. Whether it’s sunlight radiating through a sky, pinpricks of windows on the NYC skyline, the delicate veins of a flower, or the saturated colors of Coney Island amusements, the light in this show feels uncommonly compelling and memorable.
The works in this exhibit mostly comprise street scenes Eddy photographed while taking lengthy walks throughout New York City during the early days of that city’s Covid lockdown. “Because of lockdown, New York was an empty city,” Eddy told me. “I’d go on epic walks of 15 miles around the city. I felt like the city became mine. Lockdown allowed me to go places that you just wouldn’t go. I went to places that would have been too dangerous, really unusual places, really industrial, really downtrodden.”
