The Painting Center presents “Surface Tension” an exhibition curated by Shazzi Thomas that features the experimental work of ten artists who are creating a dialogue between painting and sculpture. The artists represented are: Megan Biddle, Kevin Cowl, Mary Jane Duffy, David Eddleston, Alan Goodson Fulle, Rosella Mulone, Nicholas Pella, Suzanne Russo, Laurel Sparks, and Annette Wehrhahn.

The artists in “Surface Tension” have stretched, manipulated and morphed the plane of the surface beyond its limit in ways that challenge traditional ideas of both painting and sculpture. While surface articulation may range from flat to sculptural, in all of this work there is a visual tension between the actuality of the object and the painterly space that is simultaneously perceived.

Using non-traditional materials such as latex, plaster, enamel, and mixed media to build up surfaces, these artists are questioning and playing with dimensionality. In some works, an illusion of three-dimensionality may require the viewer to become aware of his or her sense of form, mass and space. In other works, the artists allow the materials and process to create a surface that engages the sense of sight as well as touch, or they may use transparency to enable the viewer to penetrate the surface. From a limitless interiority to a built-out exterior space, the viewer experiences many aspects of spatial ambiguity as well as the intriguing intersection of medium, surface and illusion. “Surface Tension” examines the boundaries between painting and sculpture as it manifests in the work of these ten artists who are committed to exploring the literal expanse of the surface.