"Charlotte Fox: Sour" at McLennon Pen Co. Gallery in Austin Glasstire

“This is like a fever dream compilation of the weirdest pornos that you still got off to,” I thought to myself mid-afternoon on a weekday. Orgies lit by night vision, silk ribbon bows adorning soiled mattresses, and roaches scurrying over panties — such are the montaged scenes of painter Charlotte Fox, glowing from my laptop screen in their peculiar kind of adorable abjection. Based in New York, Fox has hit a stride in her particular brand of referential realism. Sourcing a plethora of imagery, from vintage porn magazines to antique furniture listings on Etsy, Fox recontextualizes her clippings into collage-like scenes rendered in oil, crafting compositional relationships in crass humor and refining their ambiguities with technical proficiency. They’re choppy yet rhythmic as they swirl into hybridized forms. But in Sour, her current solo show at McLennon Pen Co. Gallery. in Austin, Fox sheds a few layers to make room for stilling contemplation.

Installation view of “Sour,” photo: McLennon Pen Co. Gallery, Zenko Photography

Unlike Fox’s prior work, which packs in a full spectrum of visual culture, as if she collapsed her Instagram feed onto a single canvas, Sour flexes in its reduction — a conscious consideration of the gallery space  — opting instead for quieter still lives. Entering the house gallery off E 12th St., Fox’s signature chartreuse and neon-yellow hues at once beckon you in and ward you off, like radioactive beacons. Weaving through each room, the paintings linger like indices of secret moments branded onto the walls (entering the bathroom, I half expected to stumble upon the Bear Man Scene from The Shining). Viewing Sour feels like playing a game of Clue, each painting like a vignette of one event. And although the viewer’s impulse seeks resolution, you’d be remiss in gleaning a singular narrative from the exhibition. 

From left: “Limerance, Burying Something,” and “Beloved / Never Have I Ever,” photo: McLennon Pen Co. Gallery, Zenko Photography

Formally and conceptually, Sour excels in its duality. Starting with the selected source material, doubling is a recurring motif: boots, sets of legs, twin masks, and a three-seater sofa. Then Fox groups the appropriated imagery in pairs, making two-layered physical compositions (a reduction in contrast to her previous multilayered series) and compounding their connotations, though their pairings are seldom relational save for their proximity. In Limerance, a couple of porcelain figures locked in a flirtatious tizzy superimpose a pair of twin beds. Are the sculptures substitutes for real people? Are they real people who’ve been frozen by the touch of a wand, and now their beds lie cold? Fox offers nothing more. And why should she? Their compositional cadence is of chief concern. When the subjects feel evasive, the doublings offer stylistic cohesiveness while acknowledging Sour’s conceptual duplicity. Once we think we’ve cracked its code, it eludes us. 

“In My Chamber / Masks,” photo: McLennon Pen Co. Gallery, Zenko Photography

With duality comes repetition. In both Bittersweet / Wishing Well and Bed Wetter, Fox pursues a parallel between eggs and naked women. In the left panel of Bittersweet / Wishing Well, a porcelain bird with two eggs on its back sits atop a flat surface. In the right panel, a green torso lies on its back with a sheer negligee pulled down below the hips, revealing pubic hair groomed into a rectangle, their thighs steeping in liquid. On the left side, the bird’s smooth luster glints within its feathered contours and around its spherical offspring, while beads of moisture trickle down the body’s left hip — produced either by the wet environment or perspiration. 

In Bed Wetter, two hands with long acrylic nails delve into a platter of deviled eggs. A separate scene is scrapped over the hands, its tear marks alluding to Fox’s digital collage practice: a woman lies on her stomach naked from the waist down. Facing away from the viewer, her legs spread to form a small “v,” revealing her genitalia. The superimposition hovers her over the crystal dish along the appetizer circuit as if she’s part of the offering. There is a thematic shift between the eggs and the naked women in the two paintings. The diptych format of Bittersweet / Wishing Well keeps the unhatched eggs and the body distinctly separate, but in Bed Wetter, the bodies are directly engaging with the prepared eggs. Again, Fox doesn’t provide further assessment, but it’s this subtlest of shifts that Sour best encapsulates. 

“Bittersweet / Wishing Well,” photo: McLennon Pen Co. Gallery, Zenko Photography

“Bed Wetter,” photo: McLennon Pen Co. Gallery, Zenko Photography

As the exhibition’s title suggests, embittering is afoot. The saturated palettes splash an acidic tint upon the imagery, turning mundane objects grim. However, their symbolisms are neither as literal nor as convoluted as they seem. The objects intermingle to find formalist cohesion among their incongruities, and as a result, the scenes are suspended in dualities. Fox has captured a stalled state and invites us to relish in its daze. Teetering between creepy and charming, intriguing and disturbing, playful and perverted, Sour shocks us into quietude with its polished liminality. 

“Piss Yellow / Shut the Drapes” and “Bed Wetter,” photo: McLennon Pen Co. Gallery, Zenko Photography

“Frozen,” photo: McLennon Pen Co. Gallery, Zenko Photography

“Invocations,” photo: McLennon Pen Co. Gallery, Zenko Photography

Sour is on view at McLennon Pen Co. Gallery in Austin, Texas through July 27, 2024. Charlotte Fox will show work at 303 Gallery in New York in November 2024.