Fractured Memories: Curated by Christian Barragán at Project Room
Saenger Galería is pleased to present, Fractured Memories, the first solo exhibition of artist Christopher Stewart in Mexico, hosted in the gallery’s Project Room. The exhibition comprises a selection of recent paintings and works that date back to both the recent (2019) and remote past (1995), which allows us to draw an arc in time within the artist's process that explores the transit, weariness, and reconfiguration of memory.
Stewart’s work explores the relationship between time and materials to observe beauty, order, aging, and decay. His process includes painting, over-painting, and cropped vignettes that become source materials for future pieces which may take years to finalize. “Over time materials degrade. I’m interested in this break-down of canvas, paper, and pigment. Furthermore, my recollections of creating the original paintings have faded.”
His paintings evoke a sense of fragility and fractured memories, and the subject matter of eroded landscapes furthers this contemplation. “I’m interested in evolution of nature, especially with humans' impact. For instance, a tree root system on a hiking trail is naturally weathered, but deterioration is sped up by people treading on it. Conceptually that’s intriguing.”
Overworked and partially ruined landscape fragments mirror these paths. Stewart’s assiduous process is evident in a recent series, Fractured Memories. Twenty-two years ago, the artist cut up several paintings into three-inch squares and adhered them to board. He’s since scraped them off and created new grid arrangements to redefine nature and explore his own forgotten memories. "There’s order, but also randomness. The grid pervades the history of art, and perhaps I’m trying to organize my own perception of nature as seen through the presumed original landscapes.”
In other works, as is the case of Provoke (2019), his painterly gestures are layered with varied textures full of color. The unpredictability of drips from solvent are embraced and weaved into the composition. By this, Stewart bridges the relationship between representation and abstraction. Paintings that were inspired by broken rock formations, or landscapes with man-made elements now have an ambiguity that speak to a continuously changing ecosystem. “It’s important that these have a bit of uncertainty in them, as well as imperfections. Portions that feel familiar start to dissipate into something else. I accept that.”
