by Ann Stewart and Joe Camoosa
Paper Trails features a mix of vibrant and understated abstract drawings and paintings that investigate how movement, pattern, and illusion create unseen, revelatory spaces. Both artists utilize drawing and painting on paper, shifts in scale, and a variety of materials to explore a shared interest in architecture, mapping, and perception.
Each work in this exhibition is a paper trail, an abstracted record of time, presence, intent, and thought documenting the ongoing exchange between the artists. From the outset, Japanese and English gardens, mazes, maps, and the uncertainty of meaning figured prominently in the conversation. Echoing how Sophia Walker describes the allure of the garden in her book The Japanese Garden, the artists use the “purity of geometry, the obscurity of abstraction, and the ungraspability of poetry” to create spaces that offer a respite for discovery and awe.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Ann Stewart is a visual artist who uses drawing, painting, printmaking, and sculpture to investigate the visualization of perception. Stewart received her MFA from the University of Michigan and her MFA in Painting from Auburn University. She has shown her work at whitespace, International Print Center New York, Robert Henry Contemporary, Christie’s, Fay Gold Gallery, Mason Murer Fine Art, Museum of Contemporary Art Georgia, Callanwolde Fine Arts Center, and the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art.
Joe Camoosa (b. Asbury Park, NJ) lives and works in Atlanta, GA. He received an MFA in painting and drawing from the Lamar Dodd School of Art at the University of Georgia and graduated from Florida State University where he studied Mass Communications and Anthropology. Camoosa has exhibited in galleries in Atlanta, New York, Asheville, Nashville, and Richmond, and museums such as Museum of Contemporary Art Georgia, Atlanta Contemporary, The Hudgens Center for the Arts, The Georgia Museum of Art, and The Macon Museum of Arts and Sciences. His work is held in numerous corporate and private collections. He was a member of the Studio Artists Residency Program at Atlanta Contemporary and a 2016-2017 Hughley Artist Fellow. Camoosa teaches drawing and painting at the Ernest G. Welch School of Art & Design at Georgia State University.