Every Tiny Little Thing is Paul Pitsker’s first solo exhibition in three years. It marks a departure in the watercolorist’s work that wasn’t by choice or an organic evolution, but rather the result of a traumatic hand injury incurred while intervening in a violent dog fight in 2022.
After the incident he couldn’t write, much less paint, and while he has slowly built up his strength, it has affected his output in a profound way. The pieces are smaller and the level of detail he once so easily achieved, sometimes feels out of reach. It also takes him longer to finish a piece.
Distant, watercolor, 25 x 18"
However, like most extreme life challenges, they often contain blessings that add depth to one’s experience and, in Pitsker’s case, also his art.
His new paintings stay true to the themes that run through his earlier work, mainly having to do with mortality and unfulfilled longings. His delicate, translucent creatures are often placed in potentially hazardous, unsustainable scenes of temporary confinement or looming disaster that pose the question “what next?” In Distant, two seahorses gaze at each other from two unlikely containers, a blender and a small pitcher potentially filled with salt water that flowers are sucking up through their stems.
Pitsker has incorporated text into his new work that can be read in multiple ways, bringing a sense of irony and humor to his discomforting scenes. This was a decision that grew out of the scribbling, then the journaling that was part of his rehabilitation.
Pitsker explains, “The text is a way of drawing the viewer closer and offset that tension of the memento mori and mortality of the imagery with a narrative that can play into the themes of unfulfilled desire but do so humorously.”
Lucky, watercolor, 20 x 15"
The note in Distant reads: “I’ll wait for you far from here almost for ever”.
“The text expresses something close to a grand romantic gesture,” says Pitsker. “It’s playing with the idea but falls short—‘almost forever,’ ‘far from.’ It ties into my own patterns about adjusting my own expectations about what I can do and what I can hope to do in the future.”
Quieter, watercolor, 16 x 12"
In a nutshell, that’s what this show is all about. In Pitsker’s words, “Life is short and prepare to adjust your expectations, but enjoy the little miracles when they happen.”
Pitsker is still working at half his normal pace and acknowledges he may never get back to what he considers full speed. He can’t make a fist or straighten his left hand. Playing piano, another joy, has been hindered. Surprisingly, Pitsker finds his latest work more positive than his work before the injury.
Briefly, watercolor, 10 x 7"
“I think it’s a natural response to difficulty and trauma to focus on hope, on what’s good and positive, and not dwell on what you’ve lost and how things could go badly,” he says. “It’s taken me a while to get to that place but I’m happy to be here.”
Every Tiny Little Thing opens at Billis Williams Gallery in Los Angeles with a reception on Saturday, January 13, from 4 to 7 p.m. and remains on view through February 17. —
Billis Williams Gallery 2716 S. La Cienega Boulevard • Los Angeles, CA 90034 • (310) 838-3685 • www.billiswilliams.com
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