Jim Drain.

Jim Drain, a former member of the disbanded art collective Forcefield, fearlessly tackles constituent principles of Surrealism, Pattern and Decoration, high-modernist abstraction, Op and psychedelic art, all at formerly The sensual, rambunctious and extraordinarily colorful mixed-medium statuarys (all 2004-05) displayed in his first fresh York solo, "I Wish I Had a Beak," transfered his boundless energy and seemingly unlimited creative resources. Drain incorporates a labor-intensive craft into carved works that are completely over the top. Symmetrical and asymmetrical forms, a certain quantity of abstract and others suggesting final causes or figures, are covered with knit, sewn embroidered, and/or screenprinted skins, sometimes studd with beads and tassels. Like leading modernists at the turn round of the last century, Drain draws relating to non-Western traditions in order to reinvigorate his hold In fact, both the appearance and installation of Drain's carves at Greene Naftali suggested a kind of tribal ceremony

In undivided room, all of the plastic arts rose directly from the floor, omit for the particularly soft, droopy and bulbous Sourpuss, which was placed onward top of a metal staff Though ultimately abstract, Sourpuss prays a woolly-headed dragon covered with multicolored striped-fabric boils. plastic arts like this one exude an organic quality, while others, more tightly compos around a central axis, recommend functional objects. Majestical Lips, for example, turn the thoughtss like a topsy-turvy watering can or bong in Rastafarian colors; a similar piece recalls a spinner's spool

Dominating the common people was the 84-inch-tall AIDS-a-delic, my personal favorite. It strides vigorously forward forward two huge, clumsy feet like a figure on the outside of R. Crumb, chock-full of exhilaration Luscious orange yarn tassels hang down along the recent yellow, purple and black African-style textiles covering the figure, knobbed with densely beaded, semi-spherical forms, like pustules on the contrary festively striated in yellow and black. Perhaps alluding to the disease in the title, the superfluitys suggest that something may be rotting within all of Drain's visual ample means and cheeriness.

The adjacent place painted with a mural in abstract geometric patterns hinting of Africa and furnished with a crouch upholstered in a garish diamond pattern, made a comparatively weak impression. The collages displayed here pay homage to indie defence bands like Sonic Youth, Nirvana and Animal Collective, still they are clunky, with the messy examine of student work. Drain has one as well as the other unorthodox tastes and a Gargantuan appetite. The more freely he indulges, the better along we will be.

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