by Claudia Carr Levy
NEW YORK, NY
.- Upon first seeing Jason Stewarts new work, I thought of Filippo Brunelleschis facade of the Ospedale degli Innocenti, the foundling hospital in Florence that he was commissioned to design in 1419. The arches of the hospital facade have always captivated me. Brunelleschis arches are perfect in their form and progression: perfect graceful architecture. Why, I wondered, did that architectural image appear as I looked at the series of paintings called Shaping Color? The precision of Jason Stewarts arcs in their spaces on canvas resonate with Brunelleschis architecture. The paintings seem to transpose geometric architectural form into pictorial space. Perhaps this geometry would seem to belie the dominance and importance of color in these paintings. Yet color holds the arcs; the arcs hold color. The more one looks at these works, the more one observes the paradox between color and form. And the more elusive the paintings become. There is a mystery i ... More