Steven and William Ladd. Cardinal Nation, 2015; paper, glue, wheat starch, metal beads, metal trinkets, glass beads, crystal beads, pins, screws, dye, mesh, staples, and wood; 59 1/2 x 39 1/2 x 1 in. Courtesy of the Artists. © Steven and William Ladd, all rights reserved, 2015.

On one wall, works on paper are hung in two separate gridded arrangements, with twelve in each group. In the drawing Injury 1, a freehand grid is sketched with pencil, and in each unit of this framework, short, perpendicular strokes of magenta, cerulean, and black ink alternate, creating an intricate weave-like pattern that fills the page. A transparent wash of violet creates a rectangle on top of this ground and floats in the middle of the composition. Within this shape and slightly off-center, irregular patches are left unpainted, and the rectangle looks like a pane of glass with a shattered opening that exposes the layer beneath. All the drawings from this series, Injury 1–12, are nearly identical except for being distinct in color.

Steven and William Ladd. Injury 1, 2015; paper, fiber, ink, pencil, and metal trinkets; 18 x 24 x 1/8 in. Courtesy of the Artists. © Steven and William Ladd, all rights reserved, 2015.

In the other series, Merit Badges 1–12, the Ladds deviate from repetition—to an extent. Although still adhering to the constraints of the grid, they create a variety of squares and rectangles assembled from square metal trinkets that are implanted and sewn between sheets of diaphanous paper. In both series, a narrative is suggested, but the clues are ambiguous. Although there is a correlation between the title, Injury, and the carefully painted blemish in each drawing, the event that inspired these decisions is left unsaid; the word and image remain speculative and abstract. Likewise, while Merit Badges no doubt refers to the Ladds’ experiences as Cub Scouts, it is unclear what the significance of the title is in relation to the metal trinkets or the works themselves.

Steven and William Ladd. Merit Badge 1, 2015; paper, metal trinkets, pencil, and ink; 11/4 x 14 x 1/8 in. Courtesy of the Artists. © Steven and William Ladd, all rights reserved, 2015.

Spanning the length of two walls, a succession of twelve monochromes is hung neatly, single file. Again, each piece is a different color, but these are arranged in a spectrum-like sequence. Like with the Injury series, they are distinguishable from each other mainly because each work is in a distinct hue; all are the same dimensions and are composed similarly. The monochromes, however, are made of thick layers of dyed paper pulp and are coarsely textured and punctuated with finger-sized craters that are scattered across their surfaces, resulting in little excavation sites that reveal wire mesh substrates underneath. Some of these gouged holes are left bare and unadorned, while others are heavily decorated with gleaming beads, similar in color to the pulp in which they are embedded. Countless beads amass around cavities and become mildly grotesque and threatening. The kitsch commodities transform into infestations, spawn, or malignant growths that encrust orifices. Picture planes become swarming hives of activity. Whether this collocation of decoration and revulsion is intentional or not is difficult to determine. Each piece is given its own title that associates anecdotal recollections with the color of the monochrome. For instance, in the museum catalog it is explained that the red one is titled Cardinal Nation as a tribute to the local baseball team, and the brown one is titled Brownie, referring to the name of a younger Girl Scouts division in which the brothers’ sister participated. The titles are nostalgic, and their relations to colors are simplistic—because of this it is hard to imagine any subversive qualities to have been deliberate.

Steven and William Ladd. Brownie, 2015; paper, glue, wheat starch, metal beads, metal trinkets, glass beads, crystal beads, pins, screws, dye, mesh, staples, and wood; 59 x 39 1/4 x 2 3/4 in. Courtesy of the Artists. © Steven and William Ladd, all rights reserved, 2015.

No doubt the artists’ experiences in extracurricular activities as children were formative, probably even influencing their current choices of materials and processes, but these experiences as subject matter appear secondary and often a belabored effort to bestow tangible content to a studio practice that is primarily formal. That the subtitle of the exhibit—Scouts or Sports?—ends in a question mark seems subliminally telling, as if Steven and William Ladd are not wholly convinced of their overarching concept.

Jeff Depner. Drifter, 2013; acrylic on canvas; 24 x 20 in. Courtesy of the Artist.

Each of Depner’s works begins with one central shape—a circle, square, triangle, diamond, rectangle, or some combination of the five—that becomes the basis and governing principle for a specific repeating pattern. At times, and in specific areas within his paintings, Depner’s patterns appear unrelated and unpredicted, but when taken as a whole, the component parts adhere in surprisingly organic fashion.

Jeff Depner. RGP38, 2013; acrylic on canvas; 58 x 50 in. Courtesy of the Artist.

In RGP38 (2013), a large-scale acrylic painting on canvas, Depner fuses the sophisticated color sense of Bauhaus with an abstract patterning and optical illusionism reminiscent of works by M.C. Escher. Both Bauhaus and Escher were interested in exploring and advancing optics and color, but more specifically the two were invested in the importance of exploring both plausible and implausible architecture. Depner’s painting touches on both, and pays special attention to the importance of color as a symbolic and transformative attribute.

Jeff Depner. Untitled, 2013; acrylic on canvas; 34 x 30 in. Courtesy of the Artist.

In RGP38 and Untitled (both acrylic on canvas, 2013), Depner creates a visually pleasing tension in which the colors seem to push the patterned shapes simultaneously into place and out of position, as though the final composition is one snapshot in a series of interchangeable mechanical positions. As polished as the patterning in his paintings appears, there are additional marks that hint at a deeper painterly quality. To add texture and disruption to the flat planes of color and shape, Depner adds small rivulet-like drops of color throughout the canvases, as well as small marks of thickly built-up paint and areas that are nearly opaque; these additions serve to heighten the aforementioned motion by adding a three-dimensional layering to his largely flat planes of color. This strategy also reminds the viewer that these are flat and painted compositions—not sculptures—that reference a long history of painterly abstraction and compositional experimentation. His works gain some of their visual depth first by appearing full of movement, and second by reminding the viewer that the works take part in a historic lineage.

Jeff Depner. Reconfigured Grid Painting No.18, 2012; acrylic on canvas; 50 x 43 in. Courtesy of the Artist.

Much of Depner’s work is dedicated to exploring the grid, an almost archetypal form of painting that many artists have investigated. For a number of years Depner has been working on a series titled Reconfigured Grid Painting that portrays grids with a variety of shapes and color palettes. In Reconfigured Grid Painting No. 18 (2012), he continues working with repetition and patterning: bold colors and subtle textures alternate in concave and convex diamonds that give this painting an intricate optical dimension.

Jeff Depner. Reconfigured Grid Painting No.24, 2012; acrylic on canvas; 50 x 43 in. Courtesy of the Artist.

Reconfigured Grid Painting No.24 (2012) maintains the structural quality and rich coloration of Depner’s other works, but takes a surprisingly delicate turn. The painting comprises a series of long, thin diagonal parallelograms that form inverted and right-side-up V’s that sometimes double as X’s. This painting’s palette is subtler and includes more white, yellow, flat red, light greens, and calm blues. The first layers of this work also add to the restrained delicacy, as the parallelograms seem to fade into a soft and diffused watercolor background unlike his other paintings.

Depner’s rich process, sophisticated color sense, and design awareness show through in each painting. What makes his work so interesting is his ability to translate what he sees and understands into a series of coherently striking paintings with a variety of optical and painterly devices—shading, pattern, opacity, near transparency, perfect flatness, and the scraping off and building up of pigment. His compositions investigate painterly complexity with an inventive and evolving methodology that provokes the viewer to see complex relationships between the history of painting and a future that is always yet to be defined.

Jeff Depner is a Vancouver-based painter. He received his BFA in design and illustration from Capilano University, Vancouver, Canada, and has shown widely across Canada and the United States. His work has been shown internationally in solo and group exhibitions in Vancouver, CA; Portland, OR; New York, NY; and Montreal, CA. His work has also been featured in several publications and blogs, including Artbox Magazine, Ruby Mag, The Globe and Mail, and Snap Magazine.