Opening reception Thursday, April 3rd, 7-10pm.

This exhibition brings together the works of Brett Goodroad and Bill Lynch in a carefully orchestrated contemplation of materiality and metamorphosis. The presentation's deliberate restraint - featuring Lynch's paintings on wood panel alongside Goodroad's trio of copper-based works and accompanying works on paper - creates a focused environment where each piece commands careful intimate, consideration. This constrained selection allows for a deep meditation on both artists' shared preoccupation with natural phenomena while highlighting their distinctly different approaches to translating these observations into painted matter.

Lynch, whose oeuvre reverberates with an almost shamanic connection to the natural world, developed his practice in relative obscurity before his untimely death in 2013. His works, often executed on found wood, manifest as powerful talismans that collapse the boundaries between object and subject, between the material and the mystical. His botanical studies – mushrooms, flowers, and twisted vines – seem to grow directly from the wood's inherent patterning. Lynch would often leave sections of wood bare, allowing these natural formations to speak alongside his painted interventions. His technique involved thin washes of paint that he would build up gradually, creating translucent layers that echo the way fungi and lichen slowly accumulate on forest floors.

Goodroad channels a similarly profound engagement with the organic world, though his approach operates through a more systematised investigation of form and process. His paintings emerge through a durational practice of accumulation and erasure, building complex topographies that hover between landscape and pure abstraction. The resulting works exist in a state of perpetual becoming, resisting fixed interpretation while simultaneously inviting deep contemplation.

Their shared interest in cycles of growth and decay manifests differently in each practice. Lynch's works often capture moments of transformation – flowers on the verge of dropping petals, mushrooms emerging from rotting logs. Goodroad's paintings, while less explicitly representational, embody these processes through their very making, with forms emerging and submerging through successive layers of paint, mimicking the way organic matter breaks down and reconstitutes itself in nature. When viewed in dialogue, these two artists' works activate a third space of meaning; with both artists eschew the spectacular in favour of the intimate, the overlooked, the slowly revealed.

Together, their practices offer observations into nature's patterns and temporal cycles, revealing the profound interconnectedness between artistic process and ecological transformation. Through their distinct but complementary approaches, Lynch and Goodroad invite us to slow down and attend to the subtle dynamics of growth, decay, and regeneration that often escape our notice. In this carefully considered pairing, we witness how different artistic vocabularies can illuminate similar truths about the delicate balance between observation and interpretation, between control and surrender, ultimately suggesting that true artistic insight emerges not from imposing order on nature, but from patient attunement to its inherent rhythms and wisdom.

Bill Lynch (1960-2013) was an American painter whose work gained recognition largely after his death. Born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Lynch developed a distinctive style characterized by painting directly on found wood panels with subjects including landscapes, flora, fauna, and Chinese-inspired imagery. Despite struggling with schizophrenia throughout his life, Lynch produced a remarkable body of work that combines folk art sensibilities with sophisticated artistic techniques. His paintings have been celebrated for their emotional intensity, raw authenticity, and spiritual qualities. His work has received significant posthumous acclaim through exhibitions at venues like White Columns in New York City, Tanya Leighton Gallery in Berlin and The Approach in London.

Brett Goodroad (born 1979 in Kearney, Nebraska) creates his art outdoors, painting en plein air. His work balances a sense of expansiveness with solitude, capturing the relationship between atmospheric elements and paint itself. In a 2021 New Yorker piece, Hilton Als noted how Goodroad's unique combination of abstract and figurative techniques creates paintings that seem to "want to consume their own inspirational sources." This tension between desire and hesitation defines Goodroad's creative process—a dynamic interplay of surface, brushwork, pigment, and concept where transformation becomes the central theme. Instead of trying to resolve the conflict between formal elements and subject matter through either illusion or concrete objectivity, Goodroad centers his approach on the process of emergence—offering viewers an opportunity to observe and experience the moment of creation.