"I make abstract paintings that reference architecture, decorative objects and coats of arms. My oil paintings are made of thin washes using archetypal, geometric forms that resemble a kind of flattened sculpture. Many of my works use ornamentation, lattice and framing devices set against arabesque form. I'm concerned with the tension between geometry and sensual form. My color belongs to a historical lineage. You can trace a color through-line from Henri Matisse to Bob Thompson to Stanley Whitney. Color used here is saturated, spatial and idealistic. 

I am concerned with Modernist notions of progress. I’m also interested in mark-making as a form of language.  I am after an abstraction that is two-fold: one that is critical of our notions of progress and also opens up a horizon of possibilities. I paint my monolithic forms with a severe aestheticism, privileging issues of touch and surface. My paintings address the pressure and density of pigment, and the manifold ways in which touch imbues a surface with a sense of personhood. I want my surfaces to emulate the washy, ceramic glaze of Ancient Greek pottery, which was in turn referencing Egyptian art.

In past exhibitions, I have painted wall installations of gates and stages.  In these exhibits, the painted walls act as a stage for paintings to be hung on, whereas the paintings themselves are also a shallow stage. I’m interested in how mark-making can create physical and atmospheric sensations that vie with sculpture and perform a painting.  In this way, my work seeks to question a painting’s status in relation to the wall and the social realities of a given architectural site."

Jason Stopa is a painter and writer who lives in Brooklyn. He has had solo exhibitions in Paris, Seoul, New York, and Istanbul. His paintings have been reviewed in Artforum, the Brooklyn Rail, Galerie Magazine, Hyperallergic, the New Criterion, and Vogue. He completed his BFA at Indiana University and his MFA at Pratt Institute in New York. Stopa is Assistant Professor of Fine Arts at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York. He is a contributing writer to Artforum, BOMB, Momus, The Brooklyn Rail, among other art journals.