Andrew Reed Gallery is excited to announce The Return is Welcome, the gallery’s first solo exhibition of new works by Maine-based painter Jay Stern. This is Stern’s debut solo exhibition in Miami and will open on Saturday, April 19th.

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Stern’s paintings don’t aim to document the present moment, rather they aim to mythologize it. The exhibition highlights the dynamic relationship between interior and exterior and constructs a transformation of the ordinary into visual language that borders the fantastic. The artist delivers a powerful resolution: delving into the central theme of domestic and public spheres, probing their interplay, and rigorously analyzing the dynamics of interstitial spaces and the systems that govern them.

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The show’s title The Return is Welcome is in one sense autobiographical, as the work comes in the wake of Stern’s return to his partner’s home-state of Maine in 2021. In practice, Stern is using this wreckage from a previous life, to construct a new world where versions of self can be examined and collapsed. Our relationship with departure is frequently defined by the exit; however, Stern shifts the focus to the return, both as a physical declaration of the body reentering a familiar space and as a metaphorical exploration of our connection to arrival. The return is not always physical, Stern is also concerned about the emotional interplay between departure and return and how they are symbolic of time, change, and identity. The work ensues hope, a residue of the things we left behind, and the knowing that re-entry is not only essential, but able. 

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Stern depicts seemingly-tranquil moments of the quotidian—a study of drinking cups, a row of mailboxes, soccer field posts in a park—only to dissolve their literal meaning, through rigorous form, into a world of metaphor, where a more layered psychology is yet to be unraveled. Art historian Vincent Scully has posited that ‘all human culture [and architecture] is intended to protect human beings from nature in one way or another and to mitigate the effect upon them of nature's immutable laws.’  Similarly, Stern’s work doesn’t aim to praise these archetypes of American suburbia. Rather, Stern’s skillful play on scale and perception feel more like footnotes on the inevitable forfeit of these man-made spaces (along with their inherent heteronormativity) back to nature. 

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Stern weaves through this interplay with ease, bringing beauty and a rigorous visual pursuit to the surface showing that our most consistent relationship is with the constant transaction between the domestic and outside world. He uses multiple angles and references to build and collage through a process of painting using large color blocking and quick, thin brush strokes. From afar, Stern’s paintings present a highly rendered calm. As you move closer, they begin to resemble jewel-toned mirrored glass surfaces that translate into a kaleidoscopic abstraction. 

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Despite the absence of human figures, Stern’s paintings are portraits of individuals, and lives lived. Laundry Day #13 (September Linen) depicts garments of clothing, radiating various hues of green and red, teeming with affection and desire. As a stand-alone piece, this evokes Sara Ahmed’s theory put forth in Queer Phenomenology, that, “spaces are not exterior to bodies; instead, spaces are like a second skin that unfolds in the folds of the body.” Taken as a whole, the works presented position us somewhere between the coming and the going; it’s unclear whether we are seeing a glimpse of queer-domestic-rituals, or whether the unseen protagonists have abandoned the space altogether—no longer subscribing to the illusion of protection offered by the domestic space and instead allowing nature to take hold once and for all.

 

-Text by Tanner Pendleton