In 2006, I interviewed Stephen Westfall about his longtime curiosity within the prospects of a skewed grid, amongst different topics. He got here to this grid by connecting Agnes Martin with Paul Klee; he additionally mentioned vulnerability and planar abstraction, and the totally different sources from trendy indicators and symbols he may faucet into:
In my work, there’s Navajo rugs, Walker Evans, and NASCAR scoreboards. You see these things and then you definately return to start out fascinated about a construction that has all that with out promoting any single a type of issues; a construction which may breed one other construction in and of itself, and all these issues are in it.
The connection of vulnerability with planar abstraction and the tradition of indicators and symbols got here to thoughts once I visited Westfall’s present exhibition, Ornithology, at Alexandre Gallery. The title has three factors of reference: The nice American saxophonist Charlie Parker, who revolutionized jazz improvisation, was popularly often called “Bird”; the triangles that function key components in Westfall’s present work allude to abstracted chook beaks; and the Summary Expressionist Barnett Newman famously stated “Aesthetics is to artists as ornithology is to birds.”
Stephen Westfall, “Kirby Cove” (2025), oil and alkyd on canvas
What Parker and Newman, each pioneering artists, share is an curiosity in phrasing — whether or not in music or portray — inside an general composition. Parker is credited with asymmetrical phrasing, which broke up the patterned rhythms that construction large band jazz, whereas Newman used his vertical “zips” to divide his work into uneven areas with the intention to merge the totally different sides into one expertise. The strain between merging and dividing, and properly as continually fluctuating unities, lay on the core of Westfall’s geometric abstractions, with the triangle because the central function in maintaining the viewer engaged.
The exhibition consists of 10 oil and alkyd work from 2024 and ’25, and 7 gouaches courting from 2010 to 2025, in addition to a wall mural painted within the stairwell connecting the primary and second flooring. The shift within the wall’s orientation gave Westfall the chance to divide the mural into discrete sections, “Conference of Birds” I, II, and III (2025). The collision of the sections — every of which includes triangles in numerous colours and interlocking, sawtooth configurations — is concurrently cacophonous and rhythmic.
Two gouaches with related compositions, “Sharp Haze” and “Olivera,” each from 2010, convey how far Westfall has superior in his use of the diamond, coupled with the expansive limits of asymmetry. Each gouaches depict concentric diamonds. In every, the big, monochromatic diamond within the middle dominates the image airplane, whereas the enclosing ones are cropped by the paper’s edges. The 2 works are composed of static types, with their cropped edges hinting that this stasis continues past the purview of the pictorial area.
Stephen Westfall, “JuJu (for Wayne Shorter)” (2025), oil and alkyd on canvas
Westfall has spent his profession working inside the geometric abstraction style whereas attempting to disrupt the rhythmic patterns related to planar abstraction and Op Artwork. The multivalent tensions and asymmetrical shifts in “Ornithology” and “JuJu (for Wayne Shorter)” (each 2025) by no means settle into steady compositions, as they seemingly would within the geometric abstraction of earlier generations, whether or not it’s that of Sample and Ornament, Op Artwork, or Onerous Edge portray.
“JuJu (for Wayne Shorter)” is split right into a grid of 9 irregular rectangles on a sq. canvas, each additional divided diagonally into two triangles. This composition permits Westfall to improvise with coloration, portray every of the 18 triangles a special monochromatic hue. For some paired triangles, he makes use of sharply contrasting colours, and for others, he applies associated tones, corresponding to two totally different grays.
It’s with “Ornithology” and “Juju (for Wayne Shorter),” and two associated work, “Cabana I” and “Cabana II” (each 2024), that Westfall breaks open planar abstraction greater than he ever has. The logic of those works is inner. There isn’t any formulation to his coloration decisions, and he doesn’t depend on a signature construction. He achieves his need to improvise and he chooses unpredictable colours. With this group of latest work, Westfall has entered a groundbreaking phrase in his lengthy profession.
Stephen Westfall, “The Tall Grass” (2025), oil and alkyd on canvas
Stephen Westfall: Ornithology continues at Alexandre Gallery (25 East 73rd Road, Second and Third Flooring, Higher East Facet, Manhattan) via October 25. The exhibition was organized by the gallery.
