Stephanie Deady
Measure for Measure No.5, 2022
Oil on birch plywood
56 x 74 cm
Measure for Measure | 3 – 26 November 2022 Text written by Aidan Dunne Historically, in western painting, there is an art of drama and spectacle, and there is an...
Measure for Measure | 3 – 26 November 2022
Text written by Aidan Dunne
Historically, in western painting, there is an art of drama and spectacle, and there is an art of
quietness. The extrovert and the introvert. Stirring, dramatic events and moments of inner
revelation. Stephanie Deady’s work is aligned with the latter, with interior life. As the art of
painting developed in Europe, for a time spectacle seemed to gain the upper hand: with
mannerism, the baroque and rococo, things got quite turbulent. But a more restrained mode of
expression has always been there. It was especially evident among the painters of the early
Renaissance, for example. In their work, one often finds that crucial moments and events, usually of biblical and religious
significance, hinge on the implicit, intimate exchange of information between central figures. In
Simone Martini’s golden, radiant, early 14th century Annunciation, made for Siena Cathedral, a
stream of words spelled out in a straight line - Ave gratia plena dominos tecum (May the grace
of god be with you) - occupies the yawning central space between the angel and the virgin,
flanked by saints Margaret and Ansanus.
Previously, Stephanie Deady’s work has focused largely on spaces: domestic and functional
interiors, with a strong feeling of habitation though few specifically figurative elements. These
environments were charged with a degree of uncertainty, slightly unmoored, reflecting the
inevitably fallible processes involved in vision, cognition and memory. Yet while the work was in
some respects quite formally austere, there was consistently a resolute core of emotional
warmth.
One starting point for her recent work was a photograph she took of some friends in
conversation, enjoying an easy rapport. It is a casual image of a casual moment, and these very
qualities drew her back to it again and again. In her paintings, which respond to and convey the
tenor of just such a moment, there is something magical, perhaps even sacred, about the
fortuitous confluence of individual energies and trajectories, momentarily pooled in effortless,
communal harmony. The arrangement of masses and colour, the body language, the myriad
lines of communication, seeing, talking, listening, sensing, all shape the flow of the
compositions. An important point of reference in their making was the comparable harmony, in
terms of objects and spaces, she saw in Morandi’s abstracted still lifes. Like Morandi, she is
searching for, and finds, that paradoxical duality, a serene dynamism in the radiance of the
everyday.
Text written by Aidan Dunne
Historically, in western painting, there is an art of drama and spectacle, and there is an art of
quietness. The extrovert and the introvert. Stirring, dramatic events and moments of inner
revelation. Stephanie Deady’s work is aligned with the latter, with interior life. As the art of
painting developed in Europe, for a time spectacle seemed to gain the upper hand: with
mannerism, the baroque and rococo, things got quite turbulent. But a more restrained mode of
expression has always been there. It was especially evident among the painters of the early
Renaissance, for example. In their work, one often finds that crucial moments and events, usually of biblical and religious
significance, hinge on the implicit, intimate exchange of information between central figures. In
Simone Martini’s golden, radiant, early 14th century Annunciation, made for Siena Cathedral, a
stream of words spelled out in a straight line - Ave gratia plena dominos tecum (May the grace
of god be with you) - occupies the yawning central space between the angel and the virgin,
flanked by saints Margaret and Ansanus.
Previously, Stephanie Deady’s work has focused largely on spaces: domestic and functional
interiors, with a strong feeling of habitation though few specifically figurative elements. These
environments were charged with a degree of uncertainty, slightly unmoored, reflecting the
inevitably fallible processes involved in vision, cognition and memory. Yet while the work was in
some respects quite formally austere, there was consistently a resolute core of emotional
warmth.
One starting point for her recent work was a photograph she took of some friends in
conversation, enjoying an easy rapport. It is a casual image of a casual moment, and these very
qualities drew her back to it again and again. In her paintings, which respond to and convey the
tenor of just such a moment, there is something magical, perhaps even sacred, about the
fortuitous confluence of individual energies and trajectories, momentarily pooled in effortless,
communal harmony. The arrangement of masses and colour, the body language, the myriad
lines of communication, seeing, talking, listening, sensing, all shape the flow of the
compositions. An important point of reference in their making was the comparable harmony, in
terms of objects and spaces, she saw in Morandi’s abstracted still lifes. Like Morandi, she is
searching for, and finds, that paradoxical duality, a serene dynamism in the radiance of the
everyday.
