Make your way to PARTICIPANT INC. NYC tomorrow, April 7th for a night of dancing in the red neon glow of Scott Ewalt’s BACK in the NIGHT.

From March 10 – April 14, 2013 is the first major solo exhibition by Scott Ewalt, “BACK IN THE NIGHT: Psychotronic Landscapes, Objects & Souvenirs”. Two decades in the making, the exhibition is a show of nighttime impressions of the visual design of vice. Ewalt’s source material is comprised of tactile remnants at the center of psychotronic culture: Times Square from 1966-1996. His close study of historic ephemera and objects leads to portrayals of the alternative, exaggerated, accessible, and base worldview they represent—in which all pleasure is encouraged.

With the early mentorship of neo-burlesque mavericks such as John Sex, Katie K, and International Chryssis, Ewalt came to understand burlesque as the origin of punk. Already interested in the illustrations of John Willie and Stanton, he purchased his first authentic piece of burlesque ephemera, a Teaserama poster, from one of its creators, Paula Klaw. In 1987, fascinated with the play of artificial color at night, Ewalt switched from painting to digital painting using the program Pixel Paint, and he began working in nightclubs. He went on to create a short-lived nightclub party called Burlesque while finishing his graduate thesis on the dismantling of Hollywood Boulevard. In 1994, The Adonis Theater was closed, and he witnessed the sign sawed into sections and thrown in a dumpster. This sparked his retrieval of larger pieces, such as the marquees from the groundbreaking Eros and Venus theaters. But more than just a collector of artifacts, Ewalt set out early on to meet the people who populated these worlds of interest, for example his long-term friendship with Liz Renay, whose exhibition “How to Attract Men”, Ewalt curated in 2009 at Deitch Projects, NY.