Opening Saturday, May 16, 2016, The Paul Kuhn Gallery is pleased to present “crank that”, a group show of gallery artists, notably, Ashleigh Bartlett, Robin Deyo, John Eisler, Geoffrey Hunter and Mark Mullin.

 The title of the exhibition borrows its’ name from a hip hop dance move primarily performed to hip hop music as part of hip culture. This exhibition is loosely associated with hip hop in its capacity to shock and inspire. The so called “free style’ of this art is a misnomer as both the dance and the paintings often are carefully developed in the studio by classically trained artists.

 While both seem to work intuitively, there is a level of sophistication and refinement in their art.  Like hip hop, the paintings are part of a post modern genre defined by real time practice rather than any sense of a unified theory or movement. It is an art made in a time when there is no acknowledged period identity for contemporary art and no consensus on the role of the avant garde.