Bad By Design
by Kenneth Baker
San Francisco Chronicle
July 24th, 1999

There was a vogue for "bad" painting - deliberately clumsy, sentimental, unoriginal painting - about 15 years ago. It makes a comeback in the new work of Scott Hewicker at Four Walls.
The awfulness of Hewicker's "bad" paintings is a mask for their educated quality. The mushrooms that surge into his "The Cloud Colonies" (1999) and other pictures look at first like sincere imitations of folk art or of children's book or greeting card illustrations.
But look a little longer and their sinister phallic quality comes to focus. The manifest paintings takes on an aftertaste both perverse and bemused.
"Life In Cavern Splendors" (1999) suddenly looks like a view from inside a mouth. The fullness of "Escape From Witch Mountain" (1999, pictured left) is a rote imperative to cover the surface that merely pretends to be decorative delerium.
"The Fertile Lowlifes" (1999, pictured right) plays well on every level: as childhood reverie, grotesque decoration, hilarious reminiscence of surrealism and sheer busywork.