A look at recently departed John McCracken's work at David Zwirner in New York.

Imagine a world where pink and blue balloon animals battle, turning nearly every object into a violent weapon of mass destruction. A world where red apples and green apples take each other captive, threatening each other with lethal rolls of masking tape, flaming match sticks and wooden toy airplanes. It sounds ridiculous, but artist Robert Jackson doesn’t think it so far from a representation of the truth. “Most things in life I get a laugh out of, it’s kind of ridiculous, the fights we have,” said the artists. “It really is silly to break it down to a read apple vs. a green apple, I mean basically they’re both apples. One’s red one’s green, yet for some reason they’ve chosen to dislike each other, and it really looks silly when you put it on canvas.” Jackson is talking about thetheme of his current show at Gallery Henoch, “From Ridiculous to Sublime.” However when walking into the gallery, one doesn’t immediately grasp these heavy war themes. The paintings seem colorful, relatable and fun. Soda crates, soft pretzels, milk and cookies, balloon animals, cakes, watermelons and apples are the objects brightly personified in the show. “[The soda crates] are Americana, they’re just brightly colored empty calories and sugar, and have really funny words and I enjoyed them” added Jackson. “That’s what shows up in a lot of my paintings, those childhood pieces of Americana, blocks and balloon dogs and cakes, the warm fuzzies, the things we all remember and attribute some type of love for.” After revealing that he actually physically sets up all of the scenarios his edible warriors and other characters find themselves in, one can only imagine Jackson’s studio space. After choosing to edit out some of the ropes, tape, and an eye hook or ten that keep the figures in place, Jackson creates a version of a still life that is anything but traditional, and anything but still. “About six or seven years ago I made a pact with myself that I wouldn’t do just your typical still life, that I would always paint conceptually, with an idea behind it,” added the creator. “I started painting still life as a hobby and I loved it but still life can get really boring. I like the idea of the sculptural quality of still life, it’s not like looking at a landscape, I get to make a sculpture and then immortalize it, paint it on canvas.” Robert Jackson’s show is a whimsical feast for the eye. It is a silly and colorful take on the objects that plague our childhood innocence. War and fighting are ridiculous, balance is sublime. War is as silly as a red apple and a green apple in a food fight, and balance is as simple as milk and cookies, yet this balance is so hard to find. “People keep asking me ‘how long are you going to keep painting food fights?’” Jackson smiled. “Well gosh how long are we going to keep being in wars?” Terri Ciccone is the founder and editor of Contrapposto Blog and an Art Ruby contributor

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