In Cascade, Finley explores the wonders of the perceptual and cognitive experiences created by abstraction. The ten new paintings that make up the exhibition employ an elaborate iconography of repeated geometric forms, interwoven lines and gestures, rich textures, and nuanced color contrasts. Optics, geometry, and color coalesce to create a personal and interior exploration of the processes of illusion and perception.

The formulation of each painting derives from a “visual language of the artist’s invention” that points to a variety of sources. Finley alludes to interstellar space in works such as Cosmic Rays, Orbit Walker, Pathfinder, and Subspace, in which shifting spheres appear to ascend or descend in rhythmic patterns. In Deep Web and Over Simulation, the artist addresses the digital language of cyberspace, utilizing rigorously abstract grids that appear to shatter before the viewer’s eye.

As Ebony writes in “Shannon Finley’s Hypnagogic Brainscapes,” the paintings yield a “calibrated pulse and rhythm” that transcends the viewer’s experience. “The power of Finley’s art arrives not only from the dazzling and mesmerizing play of light, color, and texture on each surface, but from a pulsating force that is felt by the viewer, although its source remains hidden. Emanating from just below the surface, in an unfathomable depth, there is an indefinable place full of life, light, rhythm, and energy.” The artist’s deliberate system of image- making engages a complete visceral experience.

Cascade

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