STUX + HALLER is pleased to announce the opening of eminent artist EUGENE LEMAYʼs first solo exhibition at our gallery, Building Absence. Simultaneously, an exhibit of larger installation works will take place at Mana Contemporary in Jersey City, NJ.
Lemayʼs art foremost bears witness to a meditative, consuming darkness. His new “Monochrome” paintings in oil on canvas are central to this exhibition. These surfaces bear a delicate weight that sinks heavier in the chest as one stands before them, unearthing the complexities of each tone, gradient, and memory.
Hezron, a towering digital print on canvas with granite, is the centerpiece of this exhibition. It is a deafening silence physically expressed. Five panels hang on the wall before us, quiet and dignified. Decades after combat, Lemayʼs wartime experiences in Lebanon lurk behind a veil of viscerally rendered grey and black. Our minds, aided by the tactile granite at our feet, transport us to the incessant anxiety of discerning surroundings in the dead of night.
Two new series of works, AU and OR, done in charcoal, ink, and gold leaf on canvas or paper, complete the exhibition. These stoic objects seem to flicker, the gold leaf alternately jagged and crisp. Lemay alters the meaning of light in the darkness - so often a hopeful image. Instead, these layers of gold and shades of black are visually arresting yet vaguely unsettling markers of the splintering effects of memory and loss in a horizon of sparkling opposition.
Born in Grand Rapids, MI, in 1960, Eugene Lemayʼs recent exhibitions include “Dimensions of Dialogue,” Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome; “Faded Memory,” Contemporary by Angela Li, Hong Kong; “Strata II,” Galerie Nosbaum & Reding, Luxembourg; “Territories,” Milk Studios, NY; and “For Given, Rider Art Project,” Andy Warhol Factory. Lemayʼs works are in the collections of Grand Rapids Art Museum; Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation; and Eileen S. Kaminsky Family Foundation. Lemayʼs work has been reviewed in ARTnews, artnet, and NY ARTS, amongst others. His upcoming exhibitions will take place at The Contemporary Art Centre of Montenegro and The Museum of Isreali Art, Tel Aviv. Lemay lives and works between Miami, FL, and Jersey City, NJ, and is the founder and director of Mana Contemporary.