Jason Stopa

Hionas Gallery is pleased to present Double Trouble from painter Jason Stopa, which will run from March 26 to April 25, 2015. Comprised of recent abstract paintings from the artist’s “High Fructose” series, this exhibition is Stopa’s fourth solo effort and his first time showing with Hionas.

Stopa’s brand of abstraction is simultaneously a fundamental one and a tongue-in-cheek exercise, allowing gestural brushstrokes, drips, and impasto layering to compose his motifs all while communicating this formal language through the use of contemporary brands, including Kool Aid, Reese’s, and Cherry Coke. This source material is so instantly recognizable that the abstraction itself becomes a representation, if only for a moment. In some instances Stopa’s work reads like action painting, and yet the base elements contained within, from branded framing devices to icons that populate the canvas, lend each composition a cool stillness.

Stopa’s juxtapositions bring together the unlikeliest of bedfellows. He deconstructs the whole of each brand using hot color, texture, geometry, and broad motions, all while not compromising the subject’s integrity. These painterly formulas use simple tools to reflect simple products that are typically marketed to children, whether it’s chewing gum, candy or soda pop. Once deconstructed, Stopa will then double or quadruple the building blocks amidst a combination of glossy enamel and viscous layers of oil.

When the eye surveys an abstraction for the first time, the question inevitably arises: What is it? The brain searches for associations because it is not yet fluent in its language. This is something that has happened to us all. Stopa’s work finds the poetry in those moments, when we are first learning to appreciate abstract art and all that comes with it. In so doing, he uses brand logos as formal devices and dares with each piece to ask the question: What is it when abstraction and representation meet on the same surface?

Jason Stopa received his MFA from Pratt Institute in 2010. Recent solo exhibitions include The Brooklyn Zoo at Novella Gallery, New York, and Joggie 1983 at Kent Place Gallery, Summit, NJ. Recent group exhibitions include the Wignall Museum of Contemporary Art, California; Ed Thorp Gallery, New York; Denny Gallery, New York; Angell Gallery, Toronto; Artbridge Drawing Room, New York; and Brennan and Griffin, New York, among many others. Stopa is a contributing writer for Art in America, The Brooklyn Rail, and Whitewall Magazine. He lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.