The gallery presents an exhibition of paintings dating 2002-2007 by Paul Pagk. The exhibition will be comprised of two distinct but related bodies of work: the Lexicon Series and large-scale abstractions.

The Lexicon Series contains several dozen works, numbered sequentially as each canvas came into being. The artist’s challenge is to create a body of work that is serial but not systematic. The seriality is defined only by the consistent size restraint of the canvas which is always one-inch off square (approximately 25×24 and up to 28×27 inches), and by a desire to explore and construct a language of painting. Through repetition and difference, Pagk creates visual structures that allow for both harmony and discord, and together forms a pictorially expansive opus. Pagk paintings are a mise-en-abyme that put forward the complexities and multiple layers of meaning inherent to painting. In Pagk’s Lexicon Series the traditional equations of beauty, symmetry, and balance of formalism are discarded; instead it is the integrity and autonomy of the final object-painting as painting that is a fundamental concern.

Standing before one of Pagk’s large-scale paintings, your field of vision is suffused within an expanse of dense, vibrant color. Contained within each painting is a simple linear construct. The complex relationships between color, line and form command our active participation. Unlike Pagk’s earlier paintings which tend towards flatness, here the artist creates ambiguous spaces that reject finish and completeness. The space within the painting is at once a simple construction, and yet subtle disconnects in composition confound the eye. Painted in oil on linen, evidence of the artist’s hand are present in all works. Contradicting the seemingly minimal compositions are lushly painted surfaces that exude Baroque excess and beauty.