William Steiger

William Steiger: Ess Bend

Ess Bend, oil on canvas, 20" x 30", 2002

William Steiger: Signal


October 5-November 16, 2002

Margaret Thatcher Projects
511 West 25th Street, 4th Floor
New York, NY 10001
212.675.0222
www.thatcherprojects.com
info@thatcherprojects.com


Thatcher Projects is pleased to present William Steiger: Signal, an exhibition of recent paintings by William Steiger. The artist’s third solo exhibition at Thatcher Projects celebrates our relocation to a new, spacious gallery on the 4th floor of 511 West 25th Street, between 10th and 11th Avenues.

William Steiger’s paintings continue to explore the ongoing themes of structure, progress and technology of the early 20th Century. There is, however, much that is different. These new paintings are the more colorful and abstract of the artist’s works to date. This is most notably visible in Steiger’s new Signal and Elevator paintings.

Signal refers to a series of paintings of train signals or semaphores. The artist depicts a solitary train signal, appendages reaching outward in a silent landscape. The signal, foreground and central in the composition, sits poised to shift its stance, taking on anthropomorphic qualities. The semaphores speak in an archaic specialized railroad language, but also signal an unfolding sequence of time. Steiger’s Elevator or grain building paintings open their structures to the sky. Using positive and negative spaces, the forms seem to rise from, and meld into the landscape in which they stand. The depiction of the building is lively and fresh. What is omitted by the artist is completed by the viewer.

By pushing the abstract nature of familiar structures and symbols, Steiger has given them a contemporary context. The images hover somewhere between something remembered, observed, or imagined.

William Steiger: Semaphore I

Semaphore I (60x48)

William Steiger: Elevator I

Elevator I (60x48)

William Steiger: Elevator II

Elevator II (60x48)

William Steiger: Semaphore II

Semaphore II (60x48)

William Steiger: Wonderwheel

Wonderwheel (60x48)

Willliam Steiger: Parachute Jump

Parachute Jump (60x48)