Selected Works | Stephen Beal

Sarah Shepard Gallery is pleased to announce a Selected Works, a solo exhibition of Stephen Beal’s paintings. The grid—ubiquitous, logical, resolute, infinite—acts as inspiration, structure, and image in Beal’s work. In these paintings, the penciled matrices function as vehicles to explore the subtleties of color and brush stroke. Beal’s interest in the surface quality of paint, and its physical interaction with and manipulation of the grid, is what transforms his canvases into methodical, material studies with an undeniable presence. His paintings bring a musicality to the measured world of the grid.

Beal begins his process by carefully stretching linens or preparing wood panels. On this surface, he traces grids in graphite, providing a fundamental orientation for the paint, literally and ideologically. Beal likens laying out his grids to the “ritual of practicing scales”—a repetitive act that deepens one’s connection to the essence of the work, whether in visual art or in music. The programmatic familiarity of the grid provides a base for experimentation and improvisation. With so much dictated at the conception of the grid, Beal’s thoughtful addition of paint readily negotiates, celebrates, and even unsettles the demarcations.

Selected Works includes some of Beal’s smaller white paintings, a selection of earlier dot paintings in varied colors, and a series of new black paintings. The black paintings, made with Flashe on unprimed linen, are a departure in scale and approach from his earlier work. They introduce a sequence of dots and dashes that evoke a staccato rhythmic quality. Beal puts his shapes and motifs in conversation, energizing and subverting the graphic quality of his compositions. Rich exchanges occur across multiple axes: the artist’s hand traverses the vertical and horizontal—warp and weft—of the grid while also exploring a third dimension that oscillates between pencil plane and paint plane. With grid as structure and paint as subject, this collection of work offers a musical reflection on an illustrious visual form.

Stephen Beal lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area. His work has been widely exhibited at George Lawson Gallery, Mark Wolfe Contemporary Art, Bucheon Gallery, Chicago Cultural Center, Galereya A3, Oliver Art Center, and School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Beal served as President of California College of the Arts (CCA) from 2008-2023, before which he was the provost.