Art

Dirk Stewen

Lauren Down | Sunday 3 October, 2010 18:07

Maureen Paley 21 Herald Street, London E2 6JT

Working on potato starched paper from the post-war era, Dirk Stewen’s watercolour’s take on a ligneous texture as they combine with traces of glue and marks from work that previously inhabited the page. Works shown will consist of large sheets of photographic paper, each dyed with several layers of Indian ink, strewn with patterns of confetti and thread applied with a sewing machine, then joined together to form large rectangular panels.

Brooding, melancholic and languid strokes accompany the genderless figurative images adored in old fashioned props, whilst the abstract works express Stewen’s interested in geometry and balance. The crisp lines of paint capture a precise moment in time, a window to the intangible past that should really be seen first hand.

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