Walking in Circles - Artwork by Wayne Toepp
DATE:
June 4 - 29, 2025
ARTIST:
Wayne Toepp
CURATOR:
Kelly Edwards, Wayne Toepp
OPENING RECEPTION:
June 7, 2025 4:00p - 7:00p
Artist Statement:
Wayne Toepp’s work is an exploration of both the material and metaphysical potentialities of painting. Infused with otherworldly light, his painted abstractions engage directly with the physical qualities of paint while also denoting specific art historical modes and textual references. A significant number of recent works were produced through a sustained engagement with Samuel Becket’s trilogy - Molloy, Malone Dies and the Unnameable. The exhibition title, Walking in Circles, references Molloy’s intriguing strategy for maintaining forward progress in the trilogy’s first novel. Light is a central concern in Toepp’s painting, rendered through a process of intricately layered translucency yielding twilit spaces in which vague diaphanous forms coalesce. These atmospheres function to veil or reveal figures, landscapes, or dimly lit interiors. The work argues for the firm belief in poetic possibilities and truths.
Artist's Bio:
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Wayne Toepp is a Hudson Valley painter living in Poughkeepsie and maintaining a studio in Hyde Park. His work has been featured in numerous solo exhibitions spanning four decades as he has continued to examine the boundaries between abstraction and representation.His process is driven by the material qualities of oil paint, layering thick paint applications alternated with delicate glazes. Toepp activates mystical and poetic potentialities, all the while embracing contradiction as a viable creative outcome . The atmospheres and images within his works carry potent associations with both art historical and literary references, from northern romantic painting and haunted surrealist tableaus to images called forth by works of Samuel Beckett and T. S. Eliot. Toepp’s paintings are not bound to straightforward representations of the visible world; instead, they tread in more mystical, poetic realms. His compositions evoke a sense of mystery and ambiguity, presenting images that suggest rather than explicitly show.The muted interiority of his paintings suggest half-lit chambers and the barely discerned outlines of presences – everything in a state of luminescent flux, evoking memories of place and otherworldly light.
