Mathis Gasser's "Heroes and Ghosts" is the first US presentation of his ongoing portrait series, begun in 2007. Each small oil painting shows a lone figure facing the viewer, eerily still, borrowed from Hollywood films, pulp horror, science fiction, manga, comics, esoterica, and art history. Lifted out of their stories, these (anti-)heroes become ambiguous, surfacing collective fears of violence, resistance, and chaos.
