Tom Monteith and Peter Stegall
Artweek: Previews
February, 2007

The works of Tom Monteith and Peter Stegall are related in terms of a shared interest in abstraction and economy of line and form. Monteith makes large-format abstract paintings focused on landscape as inspiration. Comprised of limited color palette and simplified brushstrokes, the works suggest boulders, mountain peaks, intersecting planes, striated surfaces, stacked forms, slate gray in the late light of day.

A poem by A. R. Ammons included in Monteith’s artist’s statement provides a guidepost for experiencing his work: “… I am like the earth about / twenty-three degrees off, which gives me summer and winter / moods, sheds hopes and sprouts them again: what are my hopes: / it’s hard to tell what an abstract poet wants:” (From “Sphere” by A. R. Ammons.)

Stegall continues a life-long obsession with simplification of form and color. Playing with various self-imposed restrictive formats, he combines carefully mixed colors on various layers of shaped cardboard. An exploration of color relationships, their expressive potential, themes involving pattern and symmetry, and in the interchanges between positive and negative space and forms, lend Stegall’s pieces a playful quality, like jigsaw pieces with missing parts.

Most of his works are called Painted Object. One is a square shown on its point, diamond-like. The square is painted cerulean blue, with no apparent modulation in value or hue. Two small protruding circles stand in low relief on opposing sides of the square; one is slightly darker value of the same blue, while the other circle is entirely white. It is very difficult to discern if the piece is a solid form or a hole, whether it speaks of presence or absence of form. This visual riddle is made possible by the white wall on which it hangs.

Other largely white pieces also play with the white of wall, and the game of absence and presence, form and space. Another Painted Object has two, white, equivalent interlocking circles, with a sort of a black tail popping off the back, and a small blue round piece jumping off the front. The central white circular forms seen on a white wall seem to merely provide the structure for the viewer to notice the bits of colored forms floating about. Color relationships and spatial relationships, which play with mood and imagination, are the thrust and intrigue of this exhibition.

Tom Monteith and Peter Stegall will be on view March 7 through April 21 at JayJay, 5520 Elvas Ave., Sacramento.