the riveting, haunting abstract compositions of artist Angela S. Gay are informed by very personal, painful experiences that inform each work with poignant depth. these emotions are in turn echoed by the sharp, clearly defined lines of the artist’s preferred tool for application, the palette knife. the oil paintings boast intricate and subtle interactions between three formal elements: smoothed backdrops that vacillate between diffuse and shifting color fields, canopies of thick strokes of paint, and light-filled gradients; web- and diagram-like networks of lines traced by a knife; and thick, sculptural clumps of paint. the relationships between these three components shift constantly and dynamically, with changing light bringing different lines and tones to the fore, transforming the composition.

above all, Angela S. Gay’s work suggests vivid moments of clarity — emotional, historical, intellectual, or otherwise — emerging from a chaotic field of possibilities crisscrossed by connective lines. her gripping and versatile oil paintings portray our universal impulse to create continuity and meaning out of vastly disparate and seemingly unrelated events, information, and feelings. the result is a series of investigations that are irresistibly engaging and evocative.