Figure in the Field

A field is an open space. Within it, the figure takes shape for a moment, distinct, and then falls back into the cover of the tall grass. Figure in the Field at Morgan Lehman Gallery brings together nine artists, working across different styles and media, who play with the conventionally established distinction between figure and field, subject and ground. For these artists the field is an active force which decides how much of the subject will appear and how quietly it will slip away into the uncertainty and possibility of hiding. The work speaks from the shifting margins of perception where presence, attention, and fact stalk us, uncommitted but curious, from somewhere in the open field. Across painting and sculpture, the works in this exhibition trace the movement between distinction and absorption: how a form holds itself apart, how it is shaped by the space around it, and how it ultimately returns to the field that made it possible.