MOUNTAIN is pleased to present the work of Amie Cunat, Morgan Blair, and Jay Paavonpera for the gallery’s inaugural group exhibition “Blood and Sand”. The three artists selected for this exhibition explore abstract painting through a distinctive lens. The works in this show spawn from real world material, however their origins are obscured and extrapolated through the painting process. The result is an abstract formalism that creates its own self-referential language. The dialogue between the artists in this show rests in the internal logic of each work and their interplay with the larger whole.

Amie Cunat’s idiosyncratic objects, and saturated acrylic forms take on a life of their own. The work embodies an essence that is simultaneously playful and serious. Morgan Blair’s paintings pop with frenetic shapes and surfy gradients. The flow of texture and pattern give each painting a familiar feel that is difficult to pin down. Jay Paavonpera’s work uses everyday industrial materials as a readymade surface to construct a painting. The overlay of wire mesh screens on raw canvas brings an optical effect of shallow depth to the stark surface markings. As a whole, this exhibition presents a collection of unique approaches to abstract painting grounded in surface, color, process and form.