Regina Stewart

An exhibit of Regina Stewart's artwork was shown at the Broome Street Gallery in January. It included the work of the artist over a twenty-five year period and was consistant in the developement of style.

She developes a graphic technique of recycling images by embedding them (from printed material?) onto acrylic surfaces. Her images take on political and sociological themes that are repeated, overlaid, and worked into statements of visual invention.

The images are curiously remincent of Muirbridge and certain 20th century collagistists with their repetitive thematic approach. In The Search a row of figures creates a basis of a narrative sequence that might allude to political protests so common in the 60's and 70's. No definite information is given but a feeling is created that sets a tone. Figures are juxtaposed with images of busses and tanks. Is this the art of confrontation? There is something very intense about this art. It seems to capture a feeling of the time.

There are times when the work takes on a more formal stance, as in her work Floating in which a figure is isolated from the backgbround and achieves the spatial illusion of a figure flying through space as if in a dream or vision. Here she paints over the the embedded material and takes a more openly creative approach to the imagery.

Obviously at one time a painter (you can see this in the developement of of her images) Stewart has worked an art that is socially relevant as well as holding to painterly values.

Copyright © 2003 Robert Sievert