September 10 – October 28, 2020
Stephanie Serpick
Material World artist Stephanie Serpick received her BFA in painting from Carnegie Mellon and her MFA from the University of Chicago. While the subject matter of her paintings has evolved over time, her art is firmly rooted in the “canon of still life”. In 2016, influenced by her father’s illness and the presidential election, her focus turned to the depiction of beds as a safe place to escape and heal. Her most recent series of paintings, called It’s Always Darkest Before the Dawn, are intimate depictions of unmade beds and tossed sheets. According to Serpick, “the empty bed in these paintings represents a place for grief, isolation, or healing”, and the notion that suffering is universal. Sourced from personal and online photographs, Serpick repeatedly paints and sands the backgrounds to create a rough surface that tries to convey work, struggle, and time. Join Serpick in her studio as she discusses her technique and the importance of the dark backgrounds in her paintings.