If you are looking for a gallery that is the perfect introduction to the smooth and suave Vibe that is Cocktail Nation, then Mixed Company, 60 North Third Street, is not just the best spot, but the only spot, to check out. Work is always moving there, and so I'm focussing on one cool trio whose paintings are a 100 proof antidote to jive, Jenie Moore, Jeff Schaller and Stango.

     Jenie Moore bitchslaps all that's trite and humdrum and oh so obvious into tomorrow. Then cuts loose with a left hook that'll have you seeing Stars (that form constella-tion no one's even named yet). She's the perfect example of an artist whose style is immediately recognizable but whose tone boogaloos down any number of artistic paths that add up 10 a Gordian knot of an aesthetic that is fine-tuned through a haze of yesterday calling on tomorrow. And vice versa!

     Jeff Schaller dollops on encaustic that cools into the grooviest color schemes under the sun (and I dare the sun to melt the work). His is a hit 'n run of a muse that cuts loose with a whole bunch of images stacked up and slammed into each other. His paintings are some kind of mosh pit where Funky advertisements from the 40s are threaded with ghosts that pace them like shadows out to blind someone with a recognition factor bouncing around fast inside your noggin.

     Stango don't lake no mess, and he ain't quiet about it neither. He gets the most mileage out of a hardboiled reality that has super-seded our own dull third rock. Jacked up by a post-Pulp, post-Pop worldview and mindset, this, one-monikered monster keeps no se-crets as to what gets him steamed. Yet his anger is directed at all the perps who need to get theirs, and Stango takes no prisoners, instead wrapping his paintbrushes in barbed wire, old rusty stuff out for cold blood, I can sum up these artists and this gallery in two little words: Like, Wow!

PRESS/REVIEW page12 - 1 August • 2001