Painter and printmaker Lena Gustafson’s second solo exhibition with pt.2 Gallery, Flooded Channels, will be shown from July 8—August 5, 2022. Flooded Channels represents a branching of Gustafson’s painting and printmaking practice, expanding on her ongoing investigations of transformation, repression, sequential evolution, and the sensations of living in a body. The title refers to both bodies of water in the natural world, and corporal systems, which can be remarkably similar in shape and function, such as how parts of the cardiovascular system mirror the form of estuaries leading to the sea.
The work in Flooded Channels attempts to convey the sensation of being overcome by contradictory emotions—such as grief and joy. The works grapple with the existence of multiple realities, which often exist in concurrent relation and contradiction to one another. Rather than isolating each of these realities, Gustafson examines what lies at their interference. The works dive into the overlapping space of the in-between, an examination of its ebbs and flows.
Gustafson’s recent work flows similarly between her painting and printmaking practices through her application of screen printing techniques to her paintings. Rather than painting with the perspective of separate fore-, mid-, and backgrounds, the image is flattened onto a single visual plane, presented as a sole stratum. By flattening the provided visual information, Gustafson offers a metaphor for the overlapping realities that our bodies occupy. —Claire Mullen
