Exhibition: Kate Spencer Stewart - Independent 2024

Bureau is pleased to present a suite of new, large-scale works by Kate Spencer Stewart for the Independent, opening May 9th. Stewart's painting process is grounded in abstraction and repetitive mark-making. Washes of color generate a would-be stable ground, while fanning brush marks shimmer and vibrate across the picture plane. This combination ultimately destabilizes the visual. Each square canvas—eluding the conventions of either portrait or landscape— represents Stewart's attempt to paint “nothing, or the void.”

"The void is complex and ambiguous as a subject/non-subject for painting. Being like: 'well, this is an object, it’s black, and there's some shiny stuff on it. And that's it'. Or you can stare deeply into it and see... the future, perhaps, or a burning house of parliament, I don't know. […] Another word I like to use instead of void is drone, which can be spiritual, mechanical, violent, ambivalent or soothing in the same ways, except one is absent and the other is present.” - Kate Spencer Stewart in conversation with Alex Bacon, Emalin, Stories, 2024

Kate Spencer Stewart (b. 1984 Phoenix, AZ; lives and works in Los Angeles, CA) received a BFA from Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, and an MFA from University of California, Los Angeles. Solo and two-person exhibitions include Disintegration Suite, Paul Soto, New York (2023); Diurne, Emalin, London (2023); Youth, Kate Spencer Stewart & Chadwick Rantanen, Hakuna Matata, Los Angeles (2023); Convention, Bureau, New York, 2022; Nature, La Maison de Rendez- Vous, Brussels (2022); Park View / Paul Soto, Los Angeles (2020). Select group exhibitions include ABERTO/02, Domschke House, Alto da Boa Vista, São Paulo (2023); Hand to your ear, Part 2 (noise/ silence), Emalin, London (2022); Soft As Velvet Eyes Can See, Bureau, New York (2022); Autohaus St. Marx, Neuer Kunstverein Wien, Vienna (2021); Here’s why patterns, Here’s why patterns, Here’s why patterns, Misako & Rosen, Tokyo (2019); Friend of a Friend, Piktogram Gallery, Warsaw (2019).