BRIGHT SPOT: MICHAEL WAYNE HALL AND HEATHER SUNDQUIST HALL EXHIBITION

Michael Wayne Hall uses painting as a meditative practice. His work is always created by hand. Colors are individually mixed and remixed, and are applied without the use of tape or masking, allowing wobbles, smudges, and other imperfections to remain. It is important to him that while each piece is extremely precise, a close examination reveals the handmade nature of the process. His abstract paintings are grounded in his love of the flat-color and hard-edged aesthetics of vintage screenprints. He makes use of methodically blended color gradients to imply movement, transitions, and depth. The work feels familiar and yet modern, and is simultaneously both calming and energizing.

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Heather Sundquist Hall primarily works in gouache paint, and her subjects serve as an attempt to preserve fleeting memories like souvenirs from a road trip.  Much of Heather’s focus is the landscape as well as the details. She and her family have lived in Texas for over a decade. The vast terrain of the romantic southwest and it’s awe striking skies have become staples to her work. These transient landscapes often contrast with discarded objects throughout her pieces that are littered with details. It’s the subtle floral pattern on a curtain, or the kind of plaid a certain couch was that she sat on at her grandmothers in November of 1986 that she is most attracted to explore.

 

It is Heather’s hope that she can invite viewers of her work to pause for a brief quiet moment, affording them a chance to return to their own stories and recall the magic in the everyday and occasionally overlooked.