Elaine Stocki 

FDP and Ballroom Marfa are pleased to exhibit seven new pieces by Elaine Stocki that explore abstraction through a remarkable process that blend abstract expressionism, color field and assemblage.

Exploring her highly individualized relationship to materials, Stocki uses the oval as a basis to create paintings that explore the emotional and spiritual resonance of medium and form. In The Living Room setting, the shape simultaneously conjures up the domestic while rebuffing it with a unique relationship to process that operates on a frequency in opposition to the comfortable and knowable.

In the central grouping of the series (Oil Patch and Hornet’s Nest), stitched linen radiates from a central point; the workmanship of the piece heightened by the application of oil in subtle variations of colour. Stocki exceeds the space allotted for where the painting should occur, questioning the assurance of the oil surface with remnants of watercolour paintings that create a puffer halo surrounding the oval. The pieces celebrate the tradition of oil painting and defy it with a ring of hand stitched scraps.

A portion of the sales from Puffer Halo will directly support the programming of Ballroom Marfa, the non-profit arts space in Marfa, Texas.