February 2021: Paul Trapp & Rodney C. Stuart

Paul Trapp is best known for his painting of interior and exterior places.​ “Representational space, and its distortion, is at the center of my work. My paintings are made with acrylic on shaped wooden panels. The shapes are essential to the paintings because they are determined by the objects and perspectives in the painting. My paintings depict both interior and exterior views. Images of doors, stairways, bright seas, windows, or other common ingresses are distorted through use of perspective and compositional strategies. The two-dimensional distortions of illusory three-dimensional space are intended to activate the viewer’s perception — to create moments where the mind is compelled to sort out what the eyes are seeing. These inconsistencies, or spatial distortions, can help one remember that although objects and places we encounter may initially appear to be commonplace or mundane, they are not. Our experience of them can be unique, magical, and filled with wonder.

Rodney C. Stuart creates wood/mixed media small sculptures. He has been fortunate to have multiple careers as a studio artist, a curator both in museums and galleries and an art teacher in Seoul, Cairo, Sapporo and Taiwan. I feel comfortable working from one process to another. I love looking at things, surrounding myself with shapes, and filling boxes with odd materials to use in my studio. The most recent subjects of heads and toys brought me back to a more active role in story and the use of story line. Toys have been a consistent theme of my collecting and making them has been an exercise in teaching and getting started in the studio. Titles have as much to do with my love of language as they do to insights into the work. I see my role as an artist more as a jester, shaman or storyteller. I try to place an importance on play, openness, humor and simplicity.