As with much of Matthew Porter’s work, the accumulation of images creates an experience of cinematic romanticism tempered by the realities of our time and an underlying mood of concern. A naturally gifted image-maker, the light and color of Porter’s pictures, often shot at dusk in and around New York and Los Angeles, create beautiful images while the subject of many of the pictures – cages, barriers, people on phones – convey the anxiety of life in the Covid era we live in.

Porter’s pictures – which mix fact and fiction - are at times amalgamations of location shots and studio shots to create the image Porter wants. However, the aim of the work is to create a mood that is as truthful to reality as the “sunshine noir” that Porter describes allows. In a world where muscle cars fly over deserted streets and a phone is not just a phone but a weapon, Porter’s graphic eye makes a strong case for the contemplative image in a picture-saturated culture.

The title of his new exhibition at Danziger Gallery, This Is How it Ends, sounds pessimistic, it is, but it also allows for the possibility of a new beginning. Consider the yellow skies not just as prescient images of the fiery west coast skies but as hailing a new dawn. The hovering cars not just as escapes from a dystopian present but as augurs of hope. Much can be read into the title, but for artists along with the rest of the world, Covid has presented a reckoning that Porter has chosen to confront head-on.