David Woster Fallace (b. 1962) // Consider the Lobster; or, Just Add Butter, 1999 // Oil on canvas || The latent irony implicit in DWF’s lesser-known canvas explores the myth of novelty in the wake of unrelenting timespace. The title and subject matter reflect a familiar freshness du jour, while Fallace’s palette and soft brushstrokes evoke feelings of nostalgia, decomposition, and decay. The aesthetic elements of the piece discomfit the viewer’s understanding of time, forcing a jarring countenance with an existential paradox: we each live moment by moment and can only lay claim to the present, yet each moment, like each lobster, is doomed by the inevitable truth of each moment’s evanescence into oblivion. No lobsters were harmed in the making of this canvas. Except that one boiled to sit still so he could paint it. That one got fucked. But no other lobsters were harmed in the making of this canvas. All gallery proceeds from this evening will be donated to the New England Shellfishermen’s Guild. Or a night out to Legal Seafoods. We haven’t decided which.