A long decade ago, the artist LJ Lindhurst was the first contemporary realist painter I met in New York City. She was the first Missourian I met in my life. I was impressed with the way she represented both categories of person. While embodying the most interesting and effervescent aspects of both the New York career artist and the Midwestern citizen in her personality, her impressive body of artwork feels intricate and elegant, which is also a very linear extension of her intellectual processes. Straddling the ability to be profoundly relatable and unassuming, but genuinely brilliant and cerebral, Lindhurst is able to present complexities in simple ways, and simple objects in complex ways through her almost journalistic captures of common items and common chaos. The bright, wholly compelling composition of color in her art is astounding. It feels necessary to mention that she was born anosmic, and that it is this writer’s inference that her visual faculties benefited from the loss of her sense of smell by becoming honed in a manner so precise and unique. It’s as though her eyes possess the capacity to simultaneously pause and zoom in on life’s scenes. And her art is a necessary vehicle for this special ability, and we as the observers of her art are the beneficiaries of this little biological glitch. I’ve always thought it adds to her abundant charisma –the anosmia. A sort of nod to the idea that one must have a sprinkle of ‘odd’ in the mix as an artist. At one point I thought about calling the show Anosmic Notes. I settled on Tidy Heck in the pursuit of capturing the Midwestern allure of her small town upbringing, and the tiny and poetic bits of serene violence showcased so neatly in the clean lines, epic colors, and comedic charm of her work. The paintings that comprise this exhibition cover a period of time ranging from 2007 to 2024. They showcase her skill set in both small and large scale works, and tell the story of a very singular and hypnotic artistic perspective. Her art is not just in focus from a visual standpoint. Lindhurst’s art is in focus in an almost religious sense. By which I mean to say it is deeply meditative, but it manages to be so while remaining committed to honoring the mundane. I could not be prouder to launch Lunk + Hancy via an exhibition of this phenomenal artist’s work. It is timeless and earnest, and a wonderful distillation of the tidy heck that comprises so much of our structured lives.