Daniel Ingroff at Tyler Park Presents

Daniel Ingroff’s series of paintings at Tyler Park Presents build on each other in unexpected and inexplicable ways. Each of the modestly sized works presents an odd scenario, often involving a figure engaging in a fantastical or dreamlike scene. From the mystical (as in Sky Pour, in which two hands hold goblets while emerging out of circular portals to pour liquid from one chalice to another) to the surreal (as in Projector, which depicts a close crop of a face that is all but covered by a large peach pit), to the fantastical (as in Sulphur Mountain in which two white horses cantor in a woodland scene) Ingroff’s works each present a curious puzzle. 

A small suite of graphite drawings in an adjacent gallery hone in on quiet scenes — a nightshade plant in bloom, the view out of a window onto a wooded street — yet here too a sense of playful surrealism blooms. In Weightlifter a nonplussed man lifts a barbell while wearing a glorious set of butterfly wings, while Headless Figure is precisely that: a bare-chested man stands frozen as if he too is perplexed by his missing extremity. Each of Ingroff’s works is a kind of proposal to the viewer — a challenge to enter a different type of reality. Together they place us within an unknown world that asks us to loosen preconceptions and enter into a more playful cognitive headspace.

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