Steve Riedell
11 February 2022 – 15 April 2022
By appointment

“Getting There”

My first thought: new paintings for a new city: Eindhoven. Thinking about this city my mind is empty in what it knows. The studio: a foreign city; a place to explore and get lost. A place to make a wrong turn and discover things that weren 1 t part of the plan.

My routine in working is to get at it without too much thought. One thing after another. A process that questions each work by refiguring color, surface, shape and size.

The paintings are cut apart, canvas refitted to wood support, color layered over color, until the right one is paired to the right armature. Color and pattern are secondary to 3 dimensional form and the light reflected off of it. All of these paintings started out as much larger works which were then pared down. The canvas and wood supports are worked on separately and together, with most of the paint/wax mixture applied on the unstretched canvas stapled to my work table.

The way the painted canvas fits the support, front and back, is important in my decision making. If it doesn’t come together in a manner that feels natural, I start again. One action taken in a painting will influence the next. It is a series of additions and negations that moves the work along. The individual works can be seen as parts of a greater whole, where one painting leads to the next and suggests a path forward.

This body of work, ‘Eindhoven Paintings•, was made specifically for this show. The paintings were worked on side by side in my studio and I see them as belonging together, maybe as one would think of a family. Even though in the end each will go it’s own way, I’m happy they can hang together again for this exhibition in the Netherlands.

Recent exhibitions are: 2021 Paintings from the paintings list, There to Here, Larry Becker Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, PA, 2021 The Days, Studio Trisorio, Naples, Italy, 2019 Rising/Falling, 57W57Arts, NYC, NY, 2014 Place and Memory, Castello di Postignano, Postignano, Umbria, Italy.