2015 Solo Exhibitions
Monument with Wheels
The work of Joe Smith
Church of St. Paul the Apostle
April 9 - May 31
Curator: Michael Berube
Joe Smith is sometimes referred to as a Materialist, a person who finds materials and arranges them as art. That may describe a practice but is insufficient to describe his work.
Sometimes this work clearly references a Modernist approach but then something is discovered and that label no longer applies. Smith manages to transform humble materials into something greater than the sum of their parts. The connection between these works is not obvious but unveils slowly as one moves among them. The differences between the materials become transcendent as the body of work takes on a poetic linkage and the experience of viewing becomes contemplative.
Scenes from the Time Collapse
First solo exhibition of paintings by Jason Saager
Church of St. Paul the Apostle
October 24 - November 27
Curator: Michael Berube
Read Hyperallergic's review of Jason's exhibition here
As if navigating the futures of what has supposedly passed, transitions into new dimensions emerge. In this exhibition, alien landscapes coexist with figures, disjointed parallel universes, and anomalous phenomena whose relations cannot be finalized. Without concern for finding a coherent narrative structure, these paintings let aspects from the distant past collide and break open into different spaces and abstract universes as possible worlds. Mostly landscape-oriented, sense of place and historical time are drastically altered alongside painterly and architectonic wandering. The historical, natural, religious, and mythical markers at stake make a temporary breakaway from their previous ways of structuring and enter into a threshold where time dissolves. Saager’s strategies elicit a sense of the familiar that elude a tangible specific of identification while evoking an intrinsic fascination with his fantastical new worlds. We sense a thoughtful expression of sophisticated play and a transcendent liminality in his work. These paintings move between different previously unknown geographies, hauntingly familiar characters, and multiple time periods that coalesce into ambiguous narratives that transcend traditional understanding. It’s a journey worth taking.