Jonathan Stevenson reviews Fred Valentine: The Pumpkin Festival and other Portraits at Schema Projects, Bushwick, on view through February 28, 2016.

Stevenson writes: "All of Valentine's subjects are presented as slightly disoriented, not quite fitting in the dark space from which they seem to escape or the surface they purport to occupy, unable to fully form and somehow muted by their limbo. Save for the lucky few with genuinely charmed lives, everyone feels that way sometimes. Valentine captures this anti-nirvana reality with skill and panache, depth and compassion."