Exhibition Dates:
January 9 – February 27, 2027
Opening Reception with Carrie Marill & Jan Maarten Voskuil:
Saturday, January 9, 2027
1:00 - 3:00pm
In a contemporary iteration of minimalist principles, pure object and pattern offer individual contemplation in the paintings of Carrie Marill and Jan Maarten Voskuil. Voskuil’s sophisticated geometrical experiments have evolved over two decades of thoughtful and slyly humorous engagement with minimalist painting and its philosophical complexities. Marill’s meditations on pattern and volume grant both the artist and the viewer an aesthetic space that is free of preconceived ideas; an opportunity for attentiveness without judgment or limitation. Points of Stillness will showcase new works by the two artists; opening to the public on January 9, 2027.
Marill’s newest works–columns of gestural and limpid crystalline facets painted on linen canvases–delineate a place of stillness and quiet, even among the dynamic shapes and depths that they depict. Her paintings direct us to a thought process prior to assumption or action; a mineral epoch in which untethered perception is a source of profound information. Marill, who recently relocated from Arizona to Mexico, compares her artistic practice to the process of learning Spanish. “I move through Mexico and instead of understanding all conversations, I have become exquisitely attentive. Watching facial expressions, body language, cadence, repetition. I recognize patterns before vocabulary,” she remarks.
A collector of imagery and processes, Marill’s career as a painter is defined by an embodied learning of human perceptive patterns. She has studied and taken as subject matter a range of global and natural visual systems, from plant and coral growth to modernist and miniaturist traditions to quilt designs. In each example, the meditative properties of repetition and limitation become a focus. She says, “Much of my practice begins with what I think of as ‘active noticing’: the slow, deliberate observation of the visual systems that quietly organize the natural world.” In Marill’s new body of work, the chemical processes of molecules arranging into geometrical structures inform paintings that move and systematize in mysterious rhythms–forming an accretion of entrancing and refractive shapes.
Crystals embody a remarkable paradox: they are formed through immense pressure and immense patience, yet they emerge with extraordinary clarity and precision. Their faceted surfaces scatter light while revealing an invisible internal order. In these paintings, crystalline forms become a way to explore how complexity arises from simple rules, how pressure creates structure, and how light can make those hidden systems visible.
–Carrie Marill
Jan Maarten Voskuil’s career as a painter began in the realm of realism, but, like the first generation of minimalist artists, he felt that the dominant painting style of his contemporaries had become specialized to the point of superficiality and sought to pare down painting to its essential parts. “I was making realist oil-paintings and even self-portraits, but it didn’t fulfill me,” says the artist. “I decided to narrow my view and try to return my painting to a reduced and minimalistic aspect. So I ended up making modules, just pure white, simple modules.”
Linen canvases stretched across curved frames, Voskuil’s modules are a fascinating distillation of form–both a radical paring down of the traditional composition of the painting, and unique volumetric objects that challenge the expectation of a straight-edged canvas. In the minimalist tradition, Voskuil saw these modules as an inverse of Carl Andre’s “flat sculptures”, two dimensional shapes that Andre exhibited on the floor. “I said, actually, I'm going to do the same, but for painting,” remarks Voskuil, with a twinkle in his eye. “And I always have this discussion: people tell me, ‘Yeah, but they are not paintings, they are sculptures,’ and I always say, ‘No, they suck as sculptures, but as paintings, they are quite good.’” Working within the range of his mathematical abilities, he plans and constructs his geometrical frames in his own studio, and delights in the chiaroscuro-like interplay of light and shadow along the curved edges of his works.
Voskuil’s work has continued to engage in clever and unexpected ways with the Dutch concepts of De Stijl–in which the art exists for its own sake, unconnected to the artist’s personal narrative–while at the same time tracing a clear arc of personal creative experimentation. When asked about the deep, saturated colors of some more recent works, Voskuil admits, “Well, actually, I do like color. I am a colorist, I think, deep inside. But also, I don’t, because that makes it personal, and it depends on the day and on the person [which color they will respond to]. I don't believe in having a favorite color. I can sympathize with any color.”
There's a conceptual side to my work, but to me, conceptual art is not interesting without the execution. And actually, the execution always gives surprises. That's the most interesting thing about it. That's the real challenge for an artist in my opinion
–Jan Maarten Voskuil
Voskuil and Marrill’s works on linen are connected by a dedication to their craft that extends beyond the modernist milieu, and by an attention to the quiet geometries of light and form. Their works extend a path toward clarity and purpose in a time of fractal distractions, allowing the viewers expansive interior spaces for personal contemplation, as well as connection to a human history of attention and curiosity.
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