The Lookout

Merrick Adams, Mary Corman, An Hoang, Karyn Lyons, Andy Mister, Mason Saltarrelli

Turn Gallery is pleased to present The Lookout. Drawing from the concept of a lookout—both an act of keeping watch, and a physical vantage point offering expanded perspective—the exhibition explores how one’s unique position and visual language shape the act of seeing.

Weaving together the distinct styles of these six painters, their canvases examine the philosophical idea that physical location and bodily experiences form the foundation of our subjective reality. Ranging from abstract to figurative, each work invites the viewer to consider how their own subjectivity influences their understanding of existence, ultimately revealing a multiplicity of truths shaped by the observer looking out at the world.

Merrick Adams’s oceanscapes summon an abstraction of light and the unknown. Using netting as a matrix, Adams’s seascapes emerge from a meticulous layering of paint into a hypnotic tangle of rippling lines and segments of color rising and falling alive and in motion. With the ocean as a metaphor for consciousness, Adams’s paintings plunge the viewer into the depths of the unknown, offering a silent meditation.

Mary Corman depicts spaces marked by the histories of those who have visited before, witnessing the same formal elements, the same quiet emptiness. The history of these spaces imbues them with a sense of mystery and familiarity. Corman’s process is slow and steady. Her linen canvas is so refined and smooth that the oil paint seems to float above it until the canvas nearly disappears, allowing for layers of subtle gradations of light and a sense of transparency, a ghostly impression of the passage of time.

An Hoang’s paintings depict transient yet all encompassing moments of immersion in nature. Drawing from memory, An looks to encapsulate the abstract elements of weather, time and space, rather than focusing concretely on the land itself. Billowing cloud-like forms move the eye across the canvas, creating vivid undulating paintings that celebrate feelings of hope and possibility that come from transitions of light and the change of seasons.

Karyn Lyons blends reality and fantasy to depict the interiority of her teenage years. Weaving cultural, art historical, and sartorial references, she depicts autobiographical and fictional worlds where childhood imagination meets adult possibilities. Through her sensual lush layers of paint, Lyons explores the desires and loneliness rooted in these formative years, developing out of the books, movies, television, and music we embraced.

Andy Mister investigates the boundary between mechanical and manual reproduction. Expanding his technique of pastel on linen, he now layers fluid acrylic washes onto unprimed linen before drawing over them with pastel—a process which distills a balletic atmospheric and conjures a “soft realism.” Working with images including candles, landscapes, floral arrangements, and other quotidian objects, Mister’s subjects softly emerge from a monotone ground, creating an ethereal effect on a timeless plane.

Mason Saltarrelli navigates a bridge between beings and spirit by engaging with a succinct collection of discovered and abstracted characters and syllabaries. Painting and drawing intuitively, his expressiveness articulates continuing, woven motifs which invite unlimited exploration from the watcher. Saltarrelli’s jubilant work transforms human, animal and inanimate beings into buoyant embracing remembrances in an ever-evolving carousel of shape and color.