Previous Shows: 2013: Above the elbow and up to the neck: Essay

The works in this exhibition maintain both sentimental and unflappable qualities as they hover between romantic and comic ideals. Each artist begins by paying close attention to an object or image of interest – focusing on the physical nature of his or her chosen subject. Turning synthetic material on its head, the artworks emerge with weepy eyes and playful grins. The artists in this exhibition are concerned with representing the emotional and tactile experience of seeing. 

Jason Stopa’s paintings present memories of foreboding scenes as he guides the viewer toward moments leading up to and following a traumatic event. Viewers are suspended in quiet anticipation as they await episodes to come. He places his subjects within familiar and still shifting territories - the woods at night, an empty basketball court observed from a peculiar perspective. Looking at Stopa’s work creates opportunity for moving in and out of an elastic vortex – we are pushed away from the surface of the canvas by thick globs of paint and pulled in by large swaths of painterly expanse. We emote with his figures and smile at his surfaces. 

Joshua Aster finds objects around his studio that he traces in order to create illusions of time passing, ghosts forming/emerging, mazes viewed from above, windows opening and collapsing, and geometric forms connecting and dispersing. In their ambiguous construction his paintings create the opportunity simultaneously for optical pleasure and literal translation. 

Lia Lowenthal’s photographs of her ad-hoc sculptural constructions capture the haptic experience of putting up and taking away a temporary work of art. Her large pieces of plastic with Minimalist sculptures drawn on their surface create the feeling of imposing forms leaning/tilting toward you. Lowenthal’s temporary objects meet wall to wall and point to molding as plastic covers doors, holds a place, fills up the room, and takes up space. Her photographs of these site-specific installations yield idiosyncratic shadowy folds to a history of cool hard mass.