Pause, Gap, Omission

Pause, Gap, Omission: New work by Stephen Namara

Moving freely between still life, landscape and abstract drawing, Stephen Namara intuitively recognizes that abstraction and representation are not distinct categories. Pause, Gap, Omission juxtaposes Namara’s recent drawings in figurative and abstract styles, while also including pieces that encompass both sensibilities within one frame.

Working with pencil and dry powder pigments, Namara starts his works on the ground, kneeling over them to sketch and rub pigments into the fabric of the paper. This technique leaves vital traces of the world (studio dust, knee prints, smudges) that accentuate the works as physical objects. At the same time, the quality of layering the translucent pigments and the focus on fundamental elements (line, form, color) represent Namara’s exploration of non-material ideas such as vibration, energy and movement.

Pause, Gap, Omission explores the interplay between representation and abstraction, and the physical and the intangible, to show connections between these defined and unfolding spaces. As Namara explains, “I am trying to set up a dialogue between what is known and understandable, and what is not understood and incomprehensible.”

Pause, Gap, Omission is guest curated by Marguerite T. Browne.

Image: Stephen Namara, Untitled (peaches), 2019. Courtesy of the Artist