Reese Inman: Remix
Ed Stitt: Radiant

March 6 — 28 at Gallery NAGA

In March, Gallery NAGA presents work by two Boston-based painters, a mid-career abstractionist and a veteran realist painter.

Reese Inman: Remix and Ed Stitt: Radiance both run from March 6 through 28.  A reception for the artists and public will be held at the gallery on Friday, March 6 from 6 to 8 pm.

In her third solo exhibition at Gallery NAGA, Reese Inman shows large-scale paintings and a new series of drawings.  She designs her paintings on her computer, creating software programs to generate patterns of dots.  Once she produces a design she likes, she prints the pattern, affixes it to the panel, and proceeds to paint. One dollop of paint is followed by sanding, then another dollop, more sanding, until the mounds are built up and in some cases cut through, revealing pulsating colors beneath. 

Most recently, she has been airbrushing shadowy suggestions of human forms onto her paintings.  Asked why she’s interested in the human form, Inman states, “The original role of the programmer has always been invisible.  My painting process tries to inject the role of the programmer back into the process, thereby making the invisible visible.”

In addition to her paintings, Inman will exhibit for the first time, her “burn” drawings.  Using the same software system to create initial templates, the drawings are then made with an electropounce, an electrically heated metal rod, which burns through a sheet of delicate paper.  The drawings’ “lines” are actually strings of burnt holes, lace-like in their handmade irregularity.  “I’ve always liked the notion of creating drawings by removing paper.  It always pained me to cover up the beauty of the paper,” Inman explains. 

Also in March, Inman’s work will be included in blogpix, a group show at Denise Bibro Fine Art in New York.

Ed Stitt’s new paintings certainly are radiant.  Landscapes, cityscapes, paintings of convex traffic mirrors, and commissioned portraits comprise the body of work to be shown at Gallery NAGA.  Stitt is painting what he encounters everyday, “the light coming through the trees and bouncing off the streets.  But it’s not the environment I’m interested in, it’s the light,” Stitt explains.  The mirror paintings peak around visually difficult intersections, enabling Stitt to paint both what is in front of him and also what is around the corner.  “The mirror suggests a different world or reality and establishes an odd juxtaposition next to the blue sky and the grimy brick sidewalks.  The world isn’t all horizontal and vertical, it’s distorted,” Stitt remarks.

Also being exhibited are two portraits.  Stitt finds the portrait to be the most challenging and difficult form of painting he’s done.  “Portraits are like magic. I love the Michelangelo story of his finishing the sculpture of Moses.  He finally finishes the sculpture, stands back, looks at it, then commands it to speak.  The joy of portraiture is in the illusion and in the reality of having created something truthful.”