This Is Bliss, Jon Horvath
September 15 – October 21, 2017
September 15 – October 21, 2017
Installation view
Burn, 2016
Archival pigment print
Edition of 3
24″ x 30″
Tomato, 2013
Archival pigment print
Edition of 5
16″ x 20″
Karl, 2015
Archival pigment print
Edition of 3
24″ x 30″
Installation view
Installation view
Cowboy Boot, 2014
Archival pigment print
Edition of 3
24″ x 30″
Amber Inn, 2016
Archival pigment print
Edition of 3
24″ x 30″
Senior Class Quote – Alexis, 2017
Acrylic on wood panel
27″ x 48″
Senior Class Quote – Kala, 2017
Acrylic on wood panel
27″ x 48″
Installation view
Installation view
Installation view
A Welcome Message from the Prince of Bliss, 2016
Ink on three printed diner checks
10-1/2″ x 18-3/4″ overall
In 2013, during a drive through Idaho, Jon Horvath was intrigued by an interstate highway exit sign that directed one to a town named “Bliss”. The promise that conflated the emotional state with a physical locale was too compelling to ignore. Horvath drove into a declining dusty one street town with a population of 300 served by one school, one church, two bars and two gas stations and a conversation with a resident that revealed a history rooted in the grand mythologies of the American West while he was watering a patch of corn in his garden.
Through four more successive visits Horvath explored, often in collaboration with the town’s residents, the intersection of romantic western lore and the practical trials and triumphs of contemporary daily life in the town of Bliss.
This is Bliss is Horvath’s first one man exhibition of his multi-component, multimedia project that includes, photographs, tintypes, paintings and printed ephemera.
This is Bliss was generously supported by a Greater Milwaukee Foundation Mary L. Nohl Fund Fellowship.