Bill Russell, 2026, 21 x 19 inches, Retail tag fastener on canvas
Todd Pavlisko’s third solo exhibition with LaMontagne Gallery brings together portraiture, text, sculpture, and mixed media in an installation shaped by the circulation of images, the politics of representation, and the shifting meanings attached to cultural symbols. Personal and political histories intersect across the work, where familiar references acquire new complications and seemingly unrelated subjects find unexpected points of contact. Through the interplay of image, object, and context, Pavlisko examines how cultural meanings accrue, how their authority is sustained, and how humor can unsettle the assumptions they carry.
What’s the Use? carries the weary skepticism of a question that remains perpetually relevant: what matters, what endures, and what remains possible amid the contradictions of the present? Its ambiguity holds both exasperation and possibility. An atmospheric sensibility moves through the exhibition, where emotional resonance is not always bound to established meanings or a singular narrative. Humor and unease coexist with political tension; familiar symbols shift between recognition and estrangement. The resulting interplay remains open, less governed by a singular argument than by the frictions and affinities that emerge among the works.
Opening Reception: Friday, November 6th, 6 - 8 pm
Closing: Saturday, November 28th