Sean Norvet is a tour de force, a painting wizard with the type of skill and imagination that is the basis of why this magazine was founded 31 years ago. Pop-culture chaos, the infiltration of icons into our subconscious, the mass explosion of visual and product consumption is all in the work, which is both tightly packed but loosely surreal. Neighborhood Watch, Norvet's third showing at Richard Heller Gallery, comes at a time of misinformation, binary opposition, polarizing commentary and perhaps the penultimate scene of democracy. It's terrifying and a fucking mess, to be frank. Norvet is painting the fire. The gallery mentions the hypnagogic state of the works, and there is both truth in this but also a sense of being so wide-awake that the edges blur and an amalgamation of terror and real life is taking over. It's a beautiful mess. —Evan Pricco