Philip Slein Gallery: Friday, 28 February 2014

PAINTER GARY STEPHAN TO SHOW RECENT WORK AT PHILIP SLEIN GALLERY
Reception: Friday, February 28th, 2014, 6-8 pm runs through March 29th

Western thought, says Derrida, has always been structured in terms of dichotomies or polarities: good vs. evil, mind vs. matter, soul vs. body, man vs. woman, life vs. death, being vs. nothingness, presence vs. absence. If there is a predominant polarity in Gary Stephan's recent paintings, it is this last one. When Derrida spoke of presence vs. absence he usually referred to language, specifically the spoken vs. the written. In the case of Stephan's paintings, we're talking about visual language, layers of paint, some diaphanous and some not. The presence is what covers, and the absence is what is covered.

Stephan's work reflects the zeitgeist, deconstruction, and most of all, a language that is characterized by absence. It is an issue that Stephan says he has worked on for years: how can one "preserve the pleasure of the object and the pleasure of being in the world, and still work on the possibility that this is all nothing, this is all void."


Hours: Tues.-Sat. 10am-5pm

The Philip Slein Gallery
4735 McPherson Ave.
Central West End
314.361.2617