Shimon Okshteyn: Cocaine, 2008

“The majority of the eleven works in this obscenely funny and outrageously well-crafted exhibition are mirrors lovingly coated with primarily black and white oil paints. Signature magic-realist still lifes portray illegal drugs and paraphernalia, prescription drugs (including Cialis), and an ashtray filled with cigarette butts. The most caustic drug-related image is the painting Cocaine, 2008, an immaculate illusionist depiction of a razor that has ostensibly divided a white powdery substance into five lines on an actual mirror. Below the thick white trails, expressionist paint swirls accentuate the effort of cutting the forbidden substance. Many of Okshteyn’s works betray tongue-in-cheek mischievousness, but they are also poignant meditations on time, aging, and mortality.”
— Francine Koslow Miller, Artforum, Critics’ Pics

“Okshteyn is a force to contend with. His well-informed appropriationist tendencies are abetted by the artist’s urge towards classical traditions that balance gloomy introspection against outward looking strength. Add to this a coherent yet surprising use of thematic material, a richness of invention, and systematized build up of narrative — all of these aspects make Okshteyn’s work irresistibly attractive to the eye —a haptic feast laced with megatonic power.”
___Dominique Nahas, New York City