The December show at Maple Street Construct, an edgy Benson neighborhood gallery and residency space, features new abstract paintings from artist Steve Joy.
Joy, who is well known in Omaha, was the first curator for the Bemis Project, has shown his work world-wide, and is in numerous private collections and museums. His abstractions are dissections and reflections on an historic period, event, or person, pared down and manipulated into patterns and forms of texture, shape and color.
This time around, Joy moves away from the Elizabethans, and the Medieval European inspirations to which he is so recognizably connected. In Foundation Drawings, he dissects and muses on similar spiritual, meditative meanderings inspired by ruins of ancient churches in the Ethiopian desert.
“Meditative, reflective, and above all, non-representational,” he said. The works are done in combinations of fiberglass, resin, beeswax and pencil on watercolor paper.
Maple Street Construct is located at 5912 Maple Street in the heart of the historic Benson commercial district. Steve Joy’s Foundation Drawings, opens with a reception for the artist on December 6th, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., and runs through December 30th, 2019. The gallery is open only by appointment after the opening. See the website maplestconstruct@gmail.com for contact information.