ride me down easy

open forum is honored to present Brian Kokoska's first solo exhibition in Europe, ride me down easy.

Of if you will, thrusting me beneath your clothing,
Where I may feel the throbs of your heart or rest upon your hip,
Carry me when you go forth over land or sea;
For thus merely touching you is enough, is best,
And thus touching you would I silently sleep and be carried eternally.
— Walt Whitman
Excerpt from "Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand"

ride me down easy… please be gentle, please be kind. For many of us, the imposed isolation from 2020 has morphed into self-imposed exile from a (social)life which used to feel so normal, and now evokes nostalgia while seeming impossible to recreate. Despite their often bright colors and seductive figures, the paintings share an aura of melancholia. Kokoska's work resonates with tension between longing to connect, and self-imposed isolation. In his paintings, we meet figures who appear restless in their rural environs and yet who absolutely belong there. These works do not provide any answers, or even any proposals, rather they create space for us to contemplate and embrace our ambiguous relationship to human connection that has been brought on by both our shared experience of the pandemic as well as the development of social media technologies which have irrevocably changed the way we (dis)connect.

ride me down easy consists of new oil paintings Kokoska created while in residency at open forum.