Dike Blair in Bloomington, MN

This new book brings together oil paintings from the past two years by New York–based artist Dike Blair. Blair’s still lifes of door locks, ashtrays, swimming pools, hot dogs, cigarette packets, Dunkin’ Donuts coffee cups and a variety of drinks and cocktails, floral bouquets, windows and light fixtures depict their subjects in painstaking fashion, but also at an often oblique angle, so that the viewer’s gaze is directed both at and beyond the ostensible subject. As Helen Molesworth writes: “Every scene he paints—the waiting areas of airports, bars, the too-harsh incandescent light on the outdoor plants at night, the blue sky out of a plane window, the seams of windows that frame the view from the bed and leave us just a glimpse of the treetops, the bare fluorescent bulbs on the ceiling—is generic … novelty is not what is at stake; familiarity is.”