Press Release

Sharon Weiner’s abstract paintings emerge from a process of self-reflection and rigorous manipulation of paint. In her current series, Weiner trains acrylic paint into painterly volumes that seem suspended in various states of motion or metamorphosis.  They are set in nebulous and vast, inky spaces made up of layer upon layer of paint that is alternately brushed, poured and airbrushed onto her canvases.  

The forms in Weiner’s work have a likeness to ridged topographies, cosmic bursts, rushes of water or a dramatic microscopic fission; they congeal and flare out in fluid, directional drips that appear to cast a light from within.  While much of the dynamism in her work comes from the molten acrylic trills, the fluidity does not go unchecked. Weiner routinely harnesses the paint into structured, even hard-lined edges, offering a contrast to the organic forces. The free-associative aspect of the work emerges not from a love of pure materiality, but rather, translates an internal dialogue. Instead of embodying specific emotions, the artist gives a visual narrative of her process of accessing the inner voice that prompts the imagery in the paintings.

“I give visual form to what experiencing my life feels like – indeed, to what awareness itself, an abstract concept, feels like,” Weiner states. “This embodiment of sensation and thought has always been the purpose of abstract art. In particular, I feel close to the transcendental tradition in postwar American abstraction, from Mark Rothko to Ross Bleckner and Philip Taaffe. Through this practice, I am able to manifest my regard for reality as a psychological rather than cultural dynamic. I see the artist’s role as restating the internal psychological object through a language of images that make that object relevant to humanity.”