Stephanie Deady works from photographs, found images and from memory to create paintings of her surroundings, both experienced and recalled. On wooden panels, the paintings depict part of Deady’s studio, the counter top in the kitchen of a friend’s house and the corner of a living room in Italy, among other alcoves. Within these compositions small and precise brush strokes present austere and pared back scenes. To counter this, other paintings present landscapes and interiors, fragmented by gestural brushstrokes. Deady often focuses on one image and through close observation; she presents various iterations of the same space. In this way, subtle changes in the representation of the space become apparent. Minor adjustments to the perspective and horizon allude to a concern and curiosity with how a place is transformed in its representation.
There is a sense of transience and solitude, as traces of figures and furniture appear to populate the compositions momentarily. Three panels show a studio space in differing stages of use. Each presents evidence of artistic activities, though the architecture remains the emphatic focus. Viewed together, the panels become a sequence-an archive of evolving spaces. They are deceptively simple looking and in sequence they move incrementally towards abstraction. Though areas of the compositions often reveal an intense dedication to the depiction of incidental detail within the architecture. Such nuance in the rendering of light fixtures, pipes and skirting boards reveals a preoccupation with precision and an almost ascetic approach to the final touches that complete the paintings.
Deady has a way of imbuing blank spaces, whitewashed walls, ceilings and floors with texture and atmosphere. The paintings contain a kind of warmth that belies their colour palette as well as their, often frugal, composition. Regardless of the objects and figures that may appear fleetingly, there is a reassuring presence within the spaces that provides a constant.
X X V I
The props assist the house
Until the house is built,
And then the props withdraw –
And adequate, erect,
The house supports itself;
Ceasing to recollect
The auger and the carpenter.
Just such a retrospect
Hath the perfect life,
A past of plank and nail,
And slowness, – then the scaffolds drop –
Affirming it a soul.
-Emily Dickinson
