Erik Foss - The Harvest

Boo-Hooray is proud to present Erik Foss's second New York solo show of new paintings and mixed medium works on paper

Millions of children

Born to their mothers' womb,

Starved at the nipple, cry,--

Ours is the harvest!

Millions of women

Learned in the tragical

Secrets of poverty,

Sweated and beaten, cry,--

Hold back the sickles!

Millions of men

With a vestige of manhood,

Wild-eyed and gaunt-throated,

Shout with a leonine

Accent of anger,

Leaves us the wheat-fields!

When will the reapers

Strike in their sickles?

Ask not the question;

Something tremendous

Moves to the answer.

Turning 45 this year, the bloom of youth faded, I felt the shadows of mortality and the tenuousness of trying to function in late capitalism while being an independent artist. Absent health care, absent the fiscal wealth that surrounds me like another new overnight condo, I'm raw to the impact of every challenge, and I am not alone.

So many artists fight in this broken system, brave people who still push for the utopian ideal. I have been drawn

to writers and filmmakers and makers of many forms that have historically strived in this alembic. I take strength in their struggle, in the histories of these voices, voices that bear witness to and challenge a broken system.

This work is a reaction to this dystopia and an appreciation of artistic insistence.