On view September 2 - 27, 2025
Opening reception Friday September 5, from 6-8pm

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Chozick Family Art Gallery is thrilled to announce TO HELL WITH THE GANDER, our first solo exhibition with New York-based painter Elbert Joseph Perez (b. 1991). A self-taught artist whose career has developed alongside his work as an auto body mechanic in his father’s garage, Perez brings a sharp, unflinching eye to the fractures of contemporary life through a new series of oil paintings that fuse critique, humor, and tenderness.

Drawing on philosopher Alain Badiou’s concept of “metapolitics” as actions that serve the collective good—not just individual interest—Perez takes aim at the pervasive consequences of hyper-individualism, selfishness, and short-sighted ideological thinking. His compositions are visual allegories, built like idioms or punchlines, which balance fragility and power. 

Perez often uses animals as stand-ins to mirror or witness human behavior, allowing viewers to confront complex social and political dynamics through symbolic distance. Here, birds, cows, and butterflies embody our contradictions, biases, and instincts, offering a damning reflection of how we navigate power, belief, and community. In The Stupid Question, swans brawl over lunch: two attack the one who suggests strawberries over bread. In Paralyzed From the Neck Up, the ‘Holy Cow’, a smug porcelain cow stands haloed and self righteous, its holiness belied by the wildfire seen through the halo. 

Perez’s imagery is sometimes absurd, but its implications are sobering. In The “B” In Blessing Means BBQ a bishop mistakes a blessing as lunch. In Thinking About My Future a butterfly carries a flag with the Monsanto logo, excited by the potential of clean flowers to land on blind to the long-term cost. In I Giveth and Taketh Awayeth a clown dangles a carrot before the world—truth teased as spectacle. These paintings don’t just satirize belief systems; they expose how easily conviction becomes violence, and how quickly protection can morph into destruction.

Religious and nationalist symbols also recur throughout the show. Cain and Abel reimagined as dueling babies wrapped in far-right iconography; brick walls separating us from imagined heavens; a locked gate once watched by God now left empty. The effect is one of eerie familiarity—a world shaped by fear, misinterpretation, and an ever-narrowing sense of “us.”

Yet, at its core, TO HELL WITH THE GANDER is optimistic. Perez offers a gentle provocation: what would it look like to think beyond ourselves? His paintings suggest that empathy, humility, and shared vision—rather than isolation and ideological purity—might offer a way forward.

Additionally, on the occasion of the exhibition we are thrilled to release Elbert Joseph Perez: Barking at the Moon, the artist’s first monograph. The book covers the last 5 years of production and includes an essay by Julia Weist and an interview by Annie Bielski. This is the first publication released by FAMILY BOOKS, our in-house publishing initiative. Elbert Joseph Perez: Barking at the Moon will be available for sale at the gallery and on our website. 
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For more information contact rebekah@chozickfamilyartgallery.com