Inside Outside Upside Down: Ann Stewart & Steven Millar

Left:
Steven Millar
for, 2013
Plywood and venetian plaster
36 1/2" h x 32" w x 34" d
Detail

Right:
Ann Stewart
Impromptu Superlabyrinth, 2013
Graphite on Paper
33” x 31.5”
Detail

Inside Outside Upside Down, is an exhibition of the drawings and prints of Ann Stewart and the sculpture of Steven Millar that explores ideas about space, memory and perception.

By using the tools of mapping, patterning, and naming, Ann Stewart explores (in graphite on paper, etching and aquatint) her fascination with the process of how spacial recognition and cognition develops out of the experience of visual phenomena and physical environments. She asks, “How does what I see become what I know and what is the best way to visualize this translation?” Her additive and subtractive obsessive process builds lines, shapes and forms into armatures that reveal and mold transparent spaces into irregular almost believable structures. Stewart uses drawing to give a physical presence to the invisible process of perception. By using a process of pattern recognition and pattern generation the resulting architectonic spaces explore the fluid boundary between random formlessness and predictable, virtually identifiable structures.

Steven Millar’s mixed media sculpture blend memories of suburban Connecticut and research of specific places with personal or historical significance. By combining elements of design, nature and architecture Millar explores the relentlessly changing urban and natural landscape and the effects of this change on the relationship between place and identity. His work investigates the complicated intersection of the built world, society, and nature, ideas of home and community, and the connection between memory and loss. Millar writes, “My art ultimately probes the relationship between particular spaces and individual identity, how we inhabit a space and how a space inhabits us.”

Ann Stewart received her MFA from the University of Michigan and her BFA in Painting from Auburn University. Her work has been exhibited at the Spruill Center for the Arts, Atlanta; Knoxville Museum of Art, Swan Coach House Gallery, Atlanta; Woodbury University School of Architecture, San Diego, CA; Callanwolde Fine Arts Center, Atlanta; and the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art, Auburn University, Auburn, AL; and Whitespace Gallery, Atlanta. She lives and works in Atlanta, GA.

Steven Millar received his MFA from Washington University, St Louis, MO and his BA from Yale University in New Haven, CT. His work has been seen at: Exit Art, NYC; Smack Mellon, Brooklyn; Islip Art Museum, East Islip, NY; The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT; Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah, NY; The Painting Center, NYC; Socrates Sculpture Park, Long Island City, NY and Vox Populi, Philadelphia, PA. He lives and maintains his studio in Croton-on-Hudson, New York.