February 18 — March 25, 2023
Specters
Stephen Lapthisophon
Conduit Gallery is honored to announce Specters, the tenth solo exhibition of work at Conduit Gallery by Dallas-based artist, Stephen Lapthisophon.
The work of Stephen Lapthisophon is process-driven. The work evolves from layers of unconventional materials and textures: materials that include old, saved newspapers, t-shirts, coffee and coffee grounds, wood varnish, charcoal, spray paint, oil stick, chocolate and pigmented bacon fat, along with house paint.
An undeniable physicality of surface, which is built from layers of everyday “stuff” is derived from improvisation and performance, where response to what is already laid down creates additional friction with new layers which are added.
The title of the show, Specters, refers to the ghosts we carry around. Feelings of the past, and old, faded memories haunt the pictures. There are direct visual references to Duchamp (a commemorative painting, 1923 – 2023) and to Malevich. Otherwise, the paintings ask the viewer to relish the materiality of paint and texture which mingle and saturate the canvas, giving rise to sensate pleasures and discoveries.
Stephen Lapthisophon is an American artist, writer and educator working in the field of conceptual art, critical theory, and disability studies. Lapthisophon received his BFA from the University of Texas at Austin and an MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1979. His studies continued at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois in the Department of Comparative Literature and Theory. His early work combined poetry, performance, sound art, and visual arts with postmodern philosophical concerns. Influences include Arte Povera, Robert Smithson and the legacy of the Situationists, who sought to make everyday life a focus of artistic activity. He has exhibited extensively across the United States, including recent exhibitions at the Nasher Sculpture Center (2015) and Goss Michael Foundation in Dallas, and solo exhibitions at the Dallas Museum of Art (2013/2014) and Sector 2337 in Chicago (2016). Other Chicago exhibitions include the Hyde Park Art Center, Gallery 400, N.A.M.E. and Randolph Street Gallery. In addition to numerous shows in Chicago Lapthisophon has had solo shows in Philadelphia, St. Louis and Los Angeles. He has been included in international exhibitions in Berlin, Barcelona, Sweden, France and the UK. Museum exhibitions include the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and the Museo de la Ciudad Queretaro, Queretaro Mexico. Publications include Hotel Terminus (White Walls, 2001) and Writing Art Cinema 1988-2010 (Green Lantern Press, 2011). As a speaker, Lapthisophon has lectured at RISD, the University of Illinois Chicago, CalArts and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.. He currently teaches art and art history at the University of Texas at Arlington.