Eric Fischl: In Pursuit of Pleasure — Eric Fischl

Skarstedt is pleased to announce In Pursuit of Pleasure, an exhibition of recent paintings by Eric Fischl, on view from 12 November at Skarstedt Chelsea. In this suite of thirteen paintings, couples lounge by the water or on freshly cut grass, young women head to and from yoga, and groups amble through yards or down streets. Each scene is punctuated by saturated hues that evoke the intensity of the dog days of summer and heightens the allure of the lives depicted, and unfolds as a discrete short story within a shared world. Fischl continues his longstanding attention to the meanings conveyed by body language, to the stories that unfold between people, and to the relationship between interiority and exteriority. In these paintings, we are given exterior worlds with closed-off interiors, in both a literal and metaphorical sense. The activities we see are normal, mundane even. They belong to everyday life, and more specifically to the world Fischl inhabits on a day-to-day basis. And yet there is a performative nature to them. This is not to say that these actions are faked—the yoga, the walking, the lounging are all real. Rather, we see only their public behavior and presentation, without access to the inward dimensions that they themselves may or may not have examined. As is often the case in his practice, there is an apparent lack of connection, and an ambiguity that prompts us to ask what is actually happening in these paintings, and why. Even when together, these people feel separate. It seems they have arrived, done their activity together, and moved on. At the same time, these paintings differ in their emotional register from some of his past works. Where earlier paintings made discomfort more explicit, here there is the possibility of an acceptance of this performativity and lack of connection as the way things are. The process of making these paintings was marked by an ease and a joy that is unusual for Fischl, qualities that remain palpable in the paint itself. The ambiguity is there, but it extends beyond questions of who these people are and what their relationships are to one another. A further uncertainty emerges: must we judge these people for their performativity, for the ways in which they are closed off, giving us only the surface of themselves? Perhaps it is enough to enjoy the colors, the sensuous surfaces, the summer light—to be in pursuit of pleasure. In some paintings, architecture highlights this culture of display. In Polished, Professional (2026), a woman walks down the drive of a modern house. The house signifies wealth and status, but its opaque windows exert a kind of pressure that pushes the scene towards the viewer. There is also a paradox in this presentation: on the one hand, the inhabitant of such a house would have to have a certain level of comfort with the exposure its expansive glass windows would offer. And yet we cannot see through them at all. Public exposure does not necessarily yield intimacy or self-knowledge, a tension that extends to the woman in a chic red jacket. Is she a resident or a visitor? Does she own this house? Where is she going? What, if anything, does she recognize of the difference between her circumstances and those of the man quietly polishing the car? A similar kind of home recurs in works such as Last Summer Backyard, Outta Here, and Dog Walker (all 2026), each contrasting bright outdoor activity with a darkened domestic interior. Elsewhere, in Old Dog Afraid of the Water: Self Portrait (2026) and Up At The Lake (2026), the houseboat offers a more modest vision of leisure, though it too projects a fantasy of how life might be lived. The pink of the structure is almost aggressively pastel, a cheeriness so bright that it can feel harsh. Within these settings, particular figures serve as touchstones around which the paintings’ uncertain relationships unfold. In Old Dog Afraid of the Water: Self-Portrait, the dog stands on the deck beside the pink structure while two people occupy a separate float, absorbed in their own activities. Fischl has often used dogs as intermediaries between people: affection and vulnerability can be expressed through an animal more easily than they can be exchanged directly. Here, the dog would have to enter the water to reach them, making the distance between the figures both a physical obstacle and a question of connection. By identifying the dog as a self-portrait, Fischl places himself within that hesitation. Is the animal simply afraid, or has it grown tired of trying to bring people together? In Goat Yoga (2026), a woman carrying a yoga mat provides a different kind of stand-in. With her face obscured by her cap, she appears composed and confident, certain of where she is going even as her relationship to everyone around her remains unclear. A kneeling man adjusts his clothing; two figures behind her engage in an exchange whose purpose we cannot determine. Their participation in a shared activity offers no assurance of a shared experience. Yet the woman’s self-possession may also suggest contentment. Her inward life remains inaccessible, but does that mean it is absent? Like the dog, she concentrates the questions of the scene without answering them. Each vignette belongs to a recognizable world—one that Fischl has chosen to stay in, for all of its faults— and yet no single account, gesture, or interpretation explains them all fully. What first appears legible becomes less certain the longer we look. These are ambiguities rooted in specific details, allowing different readings to carry their own emotional weight. Pleasure and uncertainty can coexist, neither resolving the other.