Zac Brenner is 'Live on Air' at Smoke the Moon
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SANTA FE 鈥� Zac Brenner鈥檚 solo exhibition, 鈥淟ive on Air,鈥� at Smoke the Moon, is the visual equivalent of a great lo-fi beats playlist. The paintings don鈥檛 always make narrative sense, but they don鈥檛 need to. We feel them haptically.
For the uninitiated, lo-fi beats is a 21st century music genre consisting of mellow, sample-based grooves by basement producers, most of whom use intentionally misspelled nom de plumes like Drxnk, hoodeeny, silkw眉rm and Czapter. The 鈥渓o-fi鈥� aspect refers to intentional imperfections, like the dusty hiss of vintage records or the sleepy warp of half-melted cassette tapes, a hallmark of the sound. Unlike more aggressive uses of noise in music, the soft distortions of lo-fi beats are warm and comforting.
Brenner distorts the proportions of everything from human figures to conch shells and model trains. But unlike Edvard Munch, Francis Bacon, Francesco Clemente and other artists who have used distortion to creep out their audiences, Brenner鈥檚 lo-fi distortions are oddly soothing.
Like 鈥檚 lumpy, droopy domestic still-life paintings, Brenner鈥檚 cluttered arrangements of waxy objects possess an endearing, humanoid awkwardness. The distortion heightens their textural qualities, while encouraging us to anthropomorphize them. and some of the so-called 鈥溾�� movement painters like Charles Garabedian did similar things in the 1970s, as did post-impressionists like Paul C茅zanne in the 1880s.
C茅zanne remains a divisive figure, with some 21st century continuing to rail against his 鈥渁ggressive absurdities of disproportion鈥� and 鈥渉apless dabbing of the brush.鈥� But for folks like me 鈥� and Brenner, I presume 鈥� those are features, not flaws. Brenner鈥檚 squishy plants and rubbery conch shells activate our haptic receptors as much as C茅zanne鈥檚 Nerf-ball apples and oranges do, putting us in touch with our sense of touch, as it were.
Like many lo-fi beats songs, Brenner鈥檚 paintings have a distinctly crate-digging, thrift-store 1970s feel. His swamp green, terracotta orange, avocado and salmon hues conjure a world of mushroom lamps, Chia Pets and deep shag carpeting.
In 鈥淏ox of Rain鈥� (2023), 鈥淓arth Journey鈥� (2023) and 鈥淓ncountering Mantis鈥� (2023), Brenner brightens this autumnal palette with concentrated bursts of blue raspberry, pink lemonade and grape soda colors. It鈥檚 hard to know what鈥檚 going on in these paintings, on a literal level, with any precision. But from what I can gather, the plant that the Grateful Dead fan removes from his aquarium in 鈥淏ox of Rain鈥� mutates a la 鈥淟ittle Shop of Horrors鈥� into an all-encompassing aquatic jungle in the other two paintings, dwarfing its human subject.
In Brenner鈥檚 nighttime paintings 鈥淭ube-Man Prologue鈥� (2024) and 鈥淕host Coast Nocturne鈥� (2024), the 鈥�70s palette is occluded by dark inky blue washes. Again, I鈥檓 reminded of C茅zanne, who wanted viewers to feel the weight and dampness of the atmosphere in his landscapes. Brenner pushes that idea to the max, submerging his nighttime scenes in a gelatinous cobalt goo 鈥� sludgy, psychotropic C茅zannes for the lo-fi beats generation.
Some of Brenner鈥檚 color effects are difficult to appreciate in photographs and demand to be experienced in person. By scraping and washing away layers in works like 鈥淟ifting Weights鈥� (2024) and 鈥淢oment Between鈥� (2025), he creates vibrational fields of overlapping complementary colors, much as Katherine Bradford does. But Brenner is a much more freewheeling painter than Bradford, allowing all manner of bizarre, beautiful things to sprout and grow in his densely layered compositions.
The power of Brenner鈥檚 exhibition is diluted somewhat by the inclusion of 鈥淗elen Pinch鈥� (2024) and 鈥淒illon Sachs with His Portrait of Leonard Pickard鈥� (2024), two fairly conventional portraits that lack the weirdness, compositionally and colorwise, of the other works. But 鈥淟ive on Air鈥� is the Santa Fe native鈥檚 first solo exhibition, and it鈥檚 full of many more hits than misses. I鈥檓 sure we鈥檒l be seeing much more of him in the coming years.
