"The contentious New York gallery debut of Josh Faught, a young artist who lives in Eugene, Ore., is a cause for hope, both despite and because of an abundance of rough edges and loose ends. Mr. Faught, who earned an M.F.A. from the Art Institute of Chicago, refuses to rule out much in his astutely self-aware, craft-conscious combinations of painting, relief, collage, assemblage, knitting, weaving, fiber art, appropriation and gay politics. Indigo — perhaps the most common natural dye — is frequently used not only on textiles, yarn and dried flowers, but also on stacks of books and to print images from gay weeklies. Sequins are almost equally abundant, and pinned-on political announcements are not uncommon: “Sorry Girls, I’m Gay.”

Ikat, the ancient dye-while-you-weave technique, is employed in a work called “How to Beat the High Cost of Living,” except that the dye in question is purple nail polish. Red nail polish is splattered all over a largish rectangle of crocheted hemp. (Think small potholders; note the changes in orientation.) This time-consuming process would probably have given Jackson Pollock fits. In “House Cleaning” a similar expanse of hemp is sprayed gold, and not-so-vaguely-sexual knitted protrusions (a frequent motif) are edged in gold sequins. The works’ stretchers are sometimes latticelike grids, discreetly sheathed in knitting, and result in scalloped edges.

At the center of Mr. Faught’s magpie art is a resolute determination: All will be revealed. In the future it might be revealed with greater visual clarity and punch and maybe sharper contrasts. But this show is an exhilarating beginning."

-Roberta Smith