WILLIAM STEIN new work

About

There's a powerful discrimination at work in these new paintings of William Stein's; where another painter, abstract or not, might be concerned with what to include in a picture, what colours and motifs to combine, Stein's focus can be seen as trained in the opposite direction: the question for him is far more what to leave out, or what, once it has been included, to hide. Colours are muted, motifs are few and simple, repeated from picture to picture. Against areas of darkness or smooth chalk gesso, 'solid' shapes are blocked out and take part in a geometry that only sometimes and by accident makes sense. Massing a slow and painterly architectonics, Stein provides a subtle contemporary take on classical constructivism. William lives and works in London, and is currently studying for an MFA at the Slade School of Fine Art.