Mark Stebbins: Picture Elements
The Latcham Gallery, Stouffville, Ontario
February 22 to March 29, 2014
Opening reception Saturday March 1st from 1:00 to 3:00 pm.
Picture Elements, curated by Chai Duncan, is an exhibition of new work as well as a mini-survey of selected pieces from 2008 to 2012. Thirty-five pieces are on display, making this my largest exhibition to date.
Twenty-one new pieces explore themes of authenticity and imitation, frequently using fractured and self-reflexive pictorial structures. These geometric compositions playfully set up contrasts between various analog and digital media (all rendered by hand), modes of representation, and degrees of realism. In a number of these new pieces, I’ve quoted directly from my own work, copying and/or remixing parts of older pieces. Trompe l’oeil depictions of frames, shadows, and support materials, along with the continued incorporation of recycled byproducts of my painting process, suggest a consideration of creative processes and vocabularies that looks beyond the works themselves.
Fourteen older works are hung interspersed with the new, tracing the evolution of particular elements and ideas within my work back to 2008.
A 58-page catalogue is available through the gallery, featuring an essay by Chai Duncan as well as images of all works in the exhibition.
Thank you to the Canada Council for the Arts for their support of this exhibition.