Angela Stewart. Lambere

Lambere … touching lightly. The brush licks the surface paint lingers between brush and palette the sander obliterates. One hue flitters across various surfaces rubbing and scumbling to be interrupted by a slash of gesso a sliver of gold or a stain of silver. New work by Angela Stewart explores surface, repetition and interruption. Working between brushwork and abrasion, layers are applied, reduced and reworked. The title Lambere comes from the Latin, meaning to touch lightly or skim a surface. The works reference this through restrained gestures and controlled material changes, connecting Angela’s practice to 16th century Florentine painting, with its attention to soft mark making and surface experimentation. The paintings develop through a process in which each gesture remains visible while also being partially concealed by what follows, creating surfaces that hold traces of both addition and removal. Repetition becomes a way of testing the limits of a colour, a texture or a mark, while interruption introduces moments of contrast that alter the rhythm of the composition. The resulting works balance delicacy and physicality, allowing the material surface itself to become the space in which these gestures unfold.