Alex Gibson’s densely-layered compositions fuse source imagery from advertising, vernacular photography, film, animation and art history. Rendered in chalky pastels made by the artist, Gibson superimposes various parts of appropriated figures onto abstract backgrounds. His works have an immediacy from the pastel that allows a directness of line, richness of color, and a mutable surface that can get smudged, blurred, or obscured. Clashing elements occur throughout Gibson’s work—humor and romance, seriousness and folly, high and low art—without placing value judgments. Through the rejection of pure image production and the slippage around a picture’s original ownership, Gibson’s work is dissident. He rejects the trappings of legibility and works with images to appraise them on their terms.