William Staples: Paintings
@ 65GRAND
1378 W Grand Ave, 3, Chicago, IL 60622
Opening Friday, September 11th, from 7PM - 10PM
On view through Saturday, October 10th
Staples’ new paintings create a world in which composition, color and pictorial space lead the viewer through a variety of scenes and stations. In a few pieces, bright colors illuminate an angular work place, while in others, bits of wood and manipulated canvas incorporate varying levels of spatial engagement. As in previous work, Staples continues to exercise his ability to use the iconic setting or figure as a springboard for abstraction and contemplation, as a launching pad for his explorations in artifice. In one piece, working men with beards serve to frame the interaction of the color of their clothing with the colors of the sky, which stands in tension with the red eye-shape centered and cut from what may be a tree. Elsewhere, what could be a planet has the potential to remind one of fruit in the summer. Figures seem both alien and familiar, places both comfortable and unsettling. The paintings of William Staples present an open invitation to gaze unabashed, and allow the echoing colors and disparate images to inform an experience both instinctual and insightful.
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