JEREMY STENGER
April 23 - June 1
The gallery is delighted to present its debut exhibition of paintings by Brooklyn-based artist Jeremy Stenger. Five new works foreground the artist's recent explorations of botanical imagery, abstraction, and monochrome painting. Please join us for an opening reception on Thursday, April 25th from 6-8pm.
Contour drawings of plants, leaves, and flowers unfold along the surface of each work in an all-over composition. Imagery is influenced by Matisse's cut-outs and Ellsworth Kelly's drawings of plants, as well as the artist’s direct observation of flowers and fallen leaves. Repeated organic forms create a screen that organizes planes of color in various hues, suggesting traces and erasures. Grey-white includes faded shades of pink and yellow. Deep green reveals traces of yellow and white, the texture of the canvas's weave, and the suggestion of light. Areas of paint suggest three-dimensional relief, an effect created in part by Stenger's process of repeatedly layering paint onto the surface of the canvas and removing it within particular outlines. The works reveal a close examination of the process of painting as an act of depicting and covering and connect the painted image with the flatness of printing and the dimensionality of sculpture.
Jeremy Stenger was born in San Diego, CA in 1973 and lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. He received a BFA from California College of Art in 1996 and an MFA from Hunter College in 1996. His work has been exhibited at Hosfelt Gallery, New York, NY, St. Charles Project Space, Baltimore, MD, and Rare Gallery, New York, NY, among other venues, and has been discussed in New York Magazine, The New York Times, and The Village Voice, among other publications. Collections include the Frederick R. Weisman Foundation, Los Angeles, CA, among others.
