Sea Stages

Sarah Dineen, Craig Drennen, Amber Mustafic, Jim Peters

August 13 - 24, 2023

Public Reception: Sunday, August 13th, 6:30-8:30pm

READYMADE is pleased to present Sea Stages, an exhibition of recent works by Sarah Dineen, Craig Drennen, Amber Mustafic, and Jim Peters.

Sea Stages pulls the curtain open for four artists whose constructions theatrically leave the surface of traditional painting to enter the space of the audience themselves. Alluding to ancient imagery, patterning and the classical revivals of Shakespeare and the Renaissance, the artists embrace the dramatic. From figuration to formal abstraction the works bring drama through both direct narratives and the confrontational possibility of what a painting can be, once it breaks free from the wall.

Sarah Dineen's practice takes inspiration from the rhythms of poetry and music, and pushes the physicality of painting. In her new sculptures she leaves the wall entirely, presenting statuesque constructions on the set of the gallery. The Mics and Portal stand in as both figure and ground, platform and protagonist. The rounded Portal echoes forms of architecture reminiscent of the theater's proscenium arch.

Since 2008 Craig Drennen's practice in painting has revolved around Shakespeare's Timon of Athens. Using as a platform the Bard's least influential and possibly worst play of the Renaissance, the paintings are a meta analysis of our time and the Painter's place and presence here and now. Direct reference becomes obscured in his T paintings, whether as an abbreviation of the story's leading man, or simply its phonetic sound. The burly works are themselves grounds for the performance of painterly action.

Amber Mustafic's weavings and textile works depict intimate moments and scenes of lovers framed with embellishment. The psychological space of these oblique narratives is reinforced by their physical presence as more than images, but as objects at once familiar in their embroidered technique and mysterious in their construction.

Through baroque lighting, an omnivorous use of material and Romanesque figures, Jim Peters' works drip with drama. Literal platforms protrude from the works as stages set as diorama for the unfolding of a story in medias res. The tension is intensified by the duality of their 2-dimensional illusion and 3-dimensional reality. Provocatively dark the scenes of tragic romance transport the viewer to a setting at once contemporary and timeless.

The exhibition is the fifth in READYMADE's summer series. The program coincides with our annual DNA artist residency. Each year national and international artists are invited to the Cape of Massachusetts to create work continuing their practice and to be inspired by the Cape's beautiful landscape. The residency provides housing in Orleans and Eastham, and 2,000 sq feet of studio space in Provincetown.