Lost without the guys and dwarfed by nature, this is a romantic youth in search of something. He's absent altogether in an image he took of the Taj Mahal. In another, he stands outside the lines of an ongoing basketball game, so that even while he is surrounded by his cohorts, he can't seem to escape a gnawing self-consciousness. Like Curt, Gardner is a young man who is loved by and loves his friends, but who, like many of us, needs to be loved by people he doesn't know. This is a strange and affecting first show, but it's not without problems.
Many artists have clear-cut genesis moments.
Some are mundane, some traumatic, some make for great stories. For some, genesis is a point of departure. For others, like Gardner, it is the subject. All rights reserved.