Structure and Expression
Francis Di Tommaso, Chris Duncan
September 10th – October 30th, 2019

The exhibition Structure and Expression marks the coincidence of two disparate art practices that quite unexpectedly find themselves on common ground. Good friends for forty years, Francis Di Tommaso and Chris Duncan have never worked in even remotely similar styles. While Duncan built large outdoor sculptures of steel and concrete, Di Tommaso painted realist landscapes and carefully observed portraits of individuals and groups.

But now the “built” quality of Chris Duncan’s sculptures and the bas-relief application of paint in Francis Di Tommaso’s pictures tread parallel paths. That “structural” quality, undergirded by craft accrued over the decades, gives their work an expressive and aesthetic commonality. Though they engage and express content in different ways, both artists find meaning in facture, the physical means of creating the painting or the sculpture.

The paintings in this exhibition, though non-figurative, maintain a subtle link to figuration. The sculptures, though presenting as pure abstractions, are inevitably linked to the observed world, now specifically referenced in lively colors and varied textures that recall nature and the built environment.