Thomas Erben Gallery is pleased to present Spirited Densities, a group exhibition exploring density and layeredness through a perspective of compression (as opposed to expansion). As images and information in our media-infused lives have increased in speed and volume, an expanding experience of simultaneity has seemed to follow, with events, news, and history co-existing in the crowded moment. The works of Ryan McLaughlin, Zach Nader, Ferdinand Penker, and Emma Webster reflect this compressed quality of information, whether through reference, layering, and exposure, as in Nader’s, McLaughlin’s, and Webster’s work in painting and video or through the almost reference-less, self-reflexive, and precise works on paper of Penker, his marks altogether suggestive of much time spent at work. Structured and suffused as they may be, there is a balance, a sense of entrance, and a quality of pleasure to all of these works; they project their density as uniquely spirited.