FLOWERS: Jay Staples & Stephen Brameld

In Flowers, Stephen Brameld and Jay Staples present two gardens. One is a garden they grew; the other is painted.

Within the gallery, visitors must navigate a central reconstruction of the first garden to view the pair’s painted assemblages. Through this act – and not only because of it – the exhibition itself becomes a garden. If a garden is a place for contemplation, where beauty has been cultivated and where feelings and ideas have been transformed into things that in some way live, then yes, this exhibition is a kind of garden. In it, we see the soft hues of sunburned grasses or a swampy enclave; the red of a clay-rich dirt; the deep yellow of pollen. Dabs and gestures of purple, pink and blue borrow from the botanical.

But this is not necessarily an exhibition about flowers or their symbolism – it is an exhibition about painting, about process; and painting is a process of encoding. As marks are made, a painter’s thoughts and emotions are transferred onto the canvas, layered up and arranged, sometimes incidentally. Here, the flowers Brameld and Staples grew are conduits; both for the artists’ own expression and for the viewer’s experience of making meaning of the works. As we look across the garden, our field of view might open to unexpected responses.

OPENING NIGHT: FEB 3 6PM
GALLERY HOURS: 10AM – 4PM WED – SUN
STALA CONTEMPORARY