Mariam Stephan: Boat-Scapes

Exhibition Dates: April 23 - May 18, 2013

Reception: Thursday, April 25, 6 - 8 pm

The spaces in Mariam Stephan's paintings are located somewhere between the visible realm and the psychological/ spiritual/ philosophical one. Her haunting work explores the disjunctive nature of coaxing these varied worlds into a single dynamic domain. Using landscape motifs to explore stacking, accumulation, and infinity in compressed abstract paintings, Stephan wedges us in the earth and in the tombs of history. Her dexterity in dealing with these complicated spatial spheres reflects her deep knowledge of and connection to the history of artmaking throughout the centuries. She counts among her diverse influences Al Held, Piranesi's Carceri etchings, and the Egyptian Fayum mummy portraits. If boats are a means to travel, albeit a most inefficient way, then painting is her sister. Stephan’s new paintings remind us that we are constantly in and moving through multiple spaces and dimensions in both the most daunting and magical of ways. Stephan received her BFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and her MFA from the University of Washington, and is currently an Associate Professor in Painting at UNC Greensboro. She is a recipient of a Fulbright Award to Egypt, and her work is included in private collections as well as the permanent collection of the Mobile Museum of Art. Works on paper are available in the Pierogi Flat Files.