Topos is an exhibition of paintings and works on paper that explore destabilized, imagined landscapes. At once terrestrial and cosmological, the paintings shuttle between earthly realms and infinite universes, engaging representational strategies by turns majestic in scope and minutely detailed. Spatial planes fracture and rupture; abstracted forms erupt and float; physical places come in and out of view.
The paintings assembled in Topos are consistent with Waterston's established body of work but are innovative in their palette and use of pattern. Seas, skies, vistas, chasms, and horizons are obscured and abstracted by the use of pattern and repetitive motifs in golds, bright pinks, whites and purples contrasting against the expected colors of earth and sky. In the works on paper, a circular format enhances our reading of the landscape, but is it through a microscope, or a telescope?
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Morphology no. 1, 2016 oil on wood panel 25 x 25 inches
Morphology no. 2, 2016 oil on wood panel 25 x 25 inches
Morphology no. 3, 2016 oil on wood panel 25 x 25 inches
Morphology no. 4, 2016 oil on wood panel 25 x 25 inches
Topos no. 4, 2016 watercolor on rag paper mounted on rag paper 22 1/4 x 15 inches
Empyrean Region, 2016 oil on wood panel 48 x 48 inches
Topos no. 5, 2016 watercolor on rag paper mounted on rag paper 22 1/4 x 15 inches
Topos no. 8, 2016 watercolor on rag paper mounted on rag paper 22 1/4 x 15 inches
Vantage Point, 2016 oil on wood panel 48 x 72 inches; diptych (48 x 36 inches each panel)