A hypnotic solo exhibition in New York is “testing the boundaries of painterly abstraction and photorealism within the context of contemporary portraiture and delicately painted modern interiors,” the gallery suggests. Interested?
Artist Maxwell Stevens has mounted an ambitious exhibition at onetwentyeight gallery in New York that combines both modern and traditional interpretations of art. The resulting works offer something for lovers of representation and of abstraction.
The artist writes, “I’m interested in the domestic arena as the primary site for our psychological and emotional experiences, and in how we exist differently, historically, within each passing moment. I try to use abstraction and the fragmentation of representational imagery to evoke this.” The paintings selected represent several years of work for Stevens and convey his love for both Dutch Golden Age painting and for Abstract Expressionism.
The gallery offers, “The viewer encounters an array of intricacy and detailed brushwork executed in the individually rendered scenes underlying each picture. These intimate, miniaturized portrayals are subsequently overpainted in thick impasto, fragmenting and disrupting the initially calm scenery. This interplay arrives at a newly hybridized pictorial space, one that makes allusions to both the Dutch Golden Age and to Abstract Expressionism, yet clearly would not exist in any other era than our own.”
“Maxwell Stevens: Summer Table Paintings” opened on January 17 and will hang through February 7.
To learn more, visit onetwentyeight.
This article was featured in Fine Art Today, a weekly e-newsletter from Fine Art Connoisseur magazine. To start receiving Fine Art Today for free, click here.
Boundaries of Painterly Abstraction
