October 11 – November 17, 2001
Stephen Mueller is hard to pin down. Like no other artist, it seems, he is driven to redefine himself and his paintings faster than you have time to figure him, or them, out. With each new body of work, the imagery shifts insinuatingly, lovingly, towards a more precise visual honing or zeroing-in (perfection?) whose idealization resides somewhere within the mute clarity of suspended forms outlined against a vibrant stillness—in ways that only he could have thought of. Apparently limitless in scope, Mueller’s colors shift and gradate in evermore subtle, cerebral ways. Opulent and celebratory patterned objects embedded within a vast, seismic calm, this latest group of mostly large-scale acrylics on canvas veritably hums with fresh concepts and new delights.
For his first New York showing, Los Angeles-based artist, Dion Johnson, will present paintings on paper and canvas whose initial childlike appearance (pastel palette; Colorform-like cut-outs of dried paint sometimes molded into flowers or insect shapes; overall dreamy nostalgia) soon gives way to an understated sophistication and complex formal imagination. “The shamelessly playful appearance of these unpretentious paintings doesn’t prevent them from making deeply serious, quasi-philosophical propositions. Before them, it becomes clear that meaning does not originate from above (in some transcendent realm of Timeless Ideals) and then trickle down to earthbound viewers. Instead, it springs up from below, percolating through life’s imperfections to brew more timely truths.” David Pagel