Mary Stephenson: Big Dance centers on a commanding large-scale painting of a vacant labyrinthine corridor — doorways opening to nowhere, rectangles tilting at unstable angles — that serves as both structural and pictorial passageway into the exhibition. Surfaces treated with rabbit-skin glaze allow oil paint to seep and pool rather than rest, producing uneven monochromes where images appear submerged or rising from within. Quasi-still lifes of Peter Pan collars, books, and vessels arrive mid-dissolution, capturing the futility of controlling feeling or time. The work contests nostalgia, embracing instead the conflicted coexistence of desire and mourning.
