Conduit Gallery will present "Six Small Paintings," a selection of six recent acrylic gouache works by American artist Ludwig Schwarz. The exhibition marks a timely shift in Schwarz's practice, away from the cyclops portraits that occupied close to a year of his work and toward a new body of abstraction with non-objective leanings and a taste for storybook presentation. The works are both of the world and made in a vacuum, politically ambiguous and aesthetically charged. With no commitment to representation in tow, painting becomes once again its elusive self.

Schwarz is a performance artist, performing the role dutifully day in and day out. For many years he has maintained a studio practice relentlessly pursuing the poetic testament of his personal life, cultural observations, and institutional critique. Working with sculpture, painting, video, sound, and installation, Schwarz deftly manages to inject each with bravado and restraint. His situationally narrative works operate by unapologetically asking the viewer to consider not only the objects they are looking at, but where they are located, their circumstance, and the sorted, messy, and often absurd relationship between the two.

Following the opening reception, the exhibit will be on view through May 30.