To celebrate Kristin Stephenson's new exhibition TRACK, we are working with Alec Bathgate design and writers Anna Smith and Sally Blundell, to make a richly illustrated catalogue of the show. We intend this to be printed within a couple of months – please register interest with the gallery to order your copy now. Below is an exert from Smith's text, The Late, Late Show with Kristin Stephenson:
"Having established her reputation as an artist with a unique gift for drawing through her canny observations of both intimate and social spaces, in TRACK, Kristin Stephenson actively embraces an aesthetic pluralism. Without abandoning the power of spare, charcoal lines to render emotion, in this new show she engages in a huge range of possible techniques that point to a still evolving practice where everything is savoured and nothing discarded...Clearly, Stephenson's is not a still life mentality – there is a fierce temporality tugging at these works which seems to function in two ways. Firstly, the artist paints the object immersively. This is the stuff of the material; the motion of energetic life moving, unresolved. There are parabolic lines, wedges and splotches and pinpricks of colour, a cloud of smudges. There are times when the viewer has an impression of being taken over by a swarming or a gathering of energetic impulses. This kind of temporality is more like an unstable space of excitation, where the power of the moment, the experience itself takes over. Equally, and in a contradictory way, Stephenson chooses to knowingly explore the different means of representing the object she has at her disposal. Calling on language, both within the scene itself and the weight given to titles invites analysis; the viewer is required to step back and reflect. Why this title?"
Press release courtesy Jonathan Smart Gallery.
52 Buchan Street
Sydenham
Christchurch, 8023
New Zealand
www.jonathansmartgallery.com
+64 3 365 7070
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Sat, 11am - 3pm