The phrase “Things are not always what they seem” can sound promising or unsettling. In the exhibition“Michael Hambouz: Like Literally Figuratively,” that duality is a motif. White River Junction’s Kishka Gallery & Library currently features wall-hung works by the Brooklyn artist, and every one of them is enigmatic — in a good way. That is, in a way that makes you want to linger and scrutinize until you can answer the questions What am I looking at here? and How did he do that?
Even if you can’t, that’s OK; the exploration alone is pleasantly discombobulating.
“Personally and selfishly, what I’m drawn to in a gallery or museum is work where I don’t know what I’m looking at,” Hambouz, 49, said in a phone interview. “I like being tricked into looking carefully around a piece. Sometimes you miss some beautiful work because you didn’t take the time.”
His nine-piece exhibition at Kishka consists of one screen print and eight paintings on wood panel that come in two dimensions or three.
Installed near the gallery entrance, Hambouz’s seven-layer print titled “Daylight” immediately draws the viewer into its captivating composition: A red, black and white-striped snake covers nearly all of the square image, but the typically sinuous creature is channeled into straight lines and right angles, nestling into successively smaller squares. At the center, the serpent’s head pokes into a white space, which might be read as a portal — or just a place to rest the eyes.
If the design of “Daylight” is rectilinear, its visual effect is anything but. Hambouz creates the appearance of dimension with meticulous shadowing, and the irregular placement of black and red markings is a choreography you can’t quite follow. Anticipating an M.C. Escher-like illusion, this viewer stood in front of the piece and visually traced the snake’s path like a child with a pencil and a printed maze. But Hambouz has subverted Escher; there is no impossible construction, just a relentless directionality, around and around, toward the core. And then freedom?
“Daylight” is not the only piece in the exhibition that evokes metaphor.
“Current Mood,” made with gouache, acrylic ink and wood on a 36-inch-square panel, presents a similarly labyrinthine composition with two tracks. One is painted a vivid yellow and slashed with pointy isosceles triangles of orange and reds, giving it a fiery appearance. The other, in green, turns out to be a garden hose. Hambouz has painted a cartoony facsimile of gleaming brass hardware at both ends: one at the “entrance” on the right side of the piece, the other at the center. This portal looks surprisingly turbulent, painted in brushy white and gray. Three blue drips fall from the end of the hose.
In “N/C,” Hambouz returns to the tricolor snake, but this time it weaves through parallel structures painted in earthy browns and greens. This forced order recalls the security queue at an airport. Its “barricades” are made of balsa wood, cut in triangular strips à la Toblerone chocolate bars.
Viewers are advised to examine not only the fronts but also the sides of Hamouz’s constructions; he extends the paintings onto the frames, usually including delightful surprises. Case in point: “C’s Still Got Your T.” This 24-inch-square maze is simpler but is built up in layers six inches deep. Its alternating tracks are pink and black, and the latter decidedly references cats. One clue is that the end of this balsa-wood cat is painted to resemble a furry tail. Another is nine scattered pairs of yellow eyes, which peer from the matte black as if from an abyss. Viewers who check out the right side of the frame will be met with a toothy grin.
In a way, Hambouz’s sly humor is diversionary. A deeper consideration of his work suggests darker themes. The random entrances and exits, the claustrophobic pathways, the tightly coiled energy all hint at a pursuit of outcomes not readily found. Most viewers can relate to this quandary for any number of reasons.
I like being tricked into looking carefully
Michael Hambouz
around a piece.
For Hambouz, a recent struggle has been visual — literally. “I had back-to-back detached retinas, which made the precision pretty tricky,” he said. Surgeries saved Hambouz’s vision, but he still experiences distortion. “The hope is the brain will figure it out,” he added. “But I can drive, ride a bike, paint.”
Boy, can he paint. He can also make 2D look 3D and vice versa. His two 12-inch-square watermelon pieces, tipped sideways to hang like diamonds, seem identical. But “I Hope (You Don’t Mime)” is an acrylic gouache painting on flat panel; “B/W/R/G” is constructed with wood strips, but Hambouz painted its crenellated surface to match the 2D painting. Observed from a little distance, or in photographs, both look simultaneously flat and sculpted. Call them fraternal twins.
These works are about more than perceptual trickery; subtle political symbolism is also afoot.“B/W/R/G” represents black, white, red and green — the colors in a watermelon. They are also the colors in the flag of Palestine. Hambouz, whose father was a Palestinian refugee to the U.S., explained that at points in history when their flag was forbidden, Palestinian artists painted watermelons in its stead. There is even coding in the patterns of black seeds, he noted.
In “Like Literally Figuratively,” it seems there are messages both lost and found. ➆
“Michael Hambouz: Like Literally Figuratively,” on view through May 23 at Kishka Gallery & Library in White River Junction.
The original print version of this article was headlined “Optical Allusion | Brooklyn artist Michael Hambouz’s enigmatic Kishka Gallery show encourages discombobulation”
This article appears in May 6 • 2026.
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