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THERE ARE FIVE PAINTINGS in this exhibition, and a suite of three framed photographic iris prints. Concentrate on the more successful paintings.  Jeremy Kidd's abstract work at Coplofff has a high -jinx energy and intelligence that is filled with poised tactile and visual presence. 

Kidd's work is a study in contrasts: artificial and natural, high-keyed colors and subtle gradations, hard and soft, hot and cold. His microscopic-like imagery appears at first to be glistening and wet, the result of the sensuously-colored resin pours that cover his nova prints of high-color and enlarged photos of flowers. Glandular allustions, references to the tears and bodily fluids sparked by the glistening quality of the artist's touch, are held in check by the careful compositional quality of each work. 

Yet Kidd has the talent to take this super-charged florescent mayhem and casual lascivious imagery and to cool it off using flocking materials hich stops the light from penetrating onto the surface.  The light dusting of flocking gives certain contoured areas as soft fuzzy sheen in contrast to the hard candy-like brittlenes of the pools of acrylic resin which otherwise eddy on the surface of the paintings. There is an ethereal sens of weightlessness that descends on these dreamlike veils, pools and lick of color. The congealed materials and their color streams give us a sense of arrested momentum that is startingly intense. 

In ORBITAL, 1997, puddles of flocking material seem to have risen up creating islands of forms in relief. These suggestions of surface disturbances are enhanced by the application of interchangeable velcroed blue and yellow semi-hemisphere foam bumps. You can not only enjoy Kidd's terrific compositions, you can take one home and modify them slightly. 

SQUIB, 1997, the largest work in the exhibit, uses day-glo painted foam elements with distinction and purpose. This work has a lot going for it: its globular eleents seem to sway and float admist jelly-fish streamers and nerve-wrangling color striations. The sense of transcendent space (think of Kandinsky's 1928, SEVERAL CIRCLE) is punctuated by references to constellations, aminotic fluid and cerebullum cut-a-ways. The contradictions between illusionsm and materiality are masterfully and effectively played to the hilt by Kidd, and he comes up with a winning combination. 

Jeremy Kidd's first solo exhibition in Manhattan at Coploff's is very good one. What he will do on an enlarged scale is open to question. I'm betting the results will be worth waiting for.

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