Art First Projects

William Stein

Dreams Hurt More in the Dark

27 February – 6 April, 2013

Will Stein's practice as a painter centres on the tension between rigid formalism and intuitive, 'automatic', mark-making. These conflicting disciplines combine in exquisite compositions of line and colour across the smooth surfaces of Stein's gessoed panels. Stein also weaves the written word into his work through a kind of concrete poetry that feeds into drawing. The paintings themselves bear echoes of this as lines of pseudo 'text' float across the planes of colour and geometric form.

Each panel reaches its point of completion only after a process of near total obliteration and re- imagination. Layers of paint and pigment are sanded back, scored into and obsessively reworked. The resulting paintings, quiet and elegantly poised, belie the violence of their creation.