Will Sears makes assemblages, paintings, and murals in which abstract visual experience generates emotional resonance. Drawing on a wide array of influences—the Bauhaus weavings of Anni Albers, the color theory of Josef Albers, and the DIY ethos of San Francisco’s Mission School—Sears demonstrates the endless possibilities of the grid and the power of relational color. Like the minimal compositions of Agnes Martin, Sears’s works are concrete descriptions of abstract and often subtle interior states.

In the simplest terms, Sears’s assemblages are made from wooden blocks. He paints sheets of plywood in a single shade of latex paint and cuts them into small, regular shapes. In many works, Sears rubs colored pencil over the bumpy surface of the underpainting, then assembles the blocks together in a mosaic-like fashion, creating an optical “push-pull” akin to that found in the Op art paintings of Bridget Riley. He arranges the blocks flush against one another, letting their seams register as both edges and gridded lines, and sets them in handmade frames that both reinforce their presence and contain what could become an otherwise endless visual field. “The Third Field” includes recent assemblages and an original, site-specific mural—the first time Sears has shown these two aspects of his practice side by side.

By setting carefully selected colors alongside one another in a systematic, syncopated fashion, Sears creates works that are more than the sum of their parts. Sears knows, for example, that we often process red and blue stripes in close proximity into a field of purple, or that a neutral gray may read warm or cool depending on an adjacent color, and experiments with these effects. If Sears’s colors and forms act as two overlaid compositions existing with some independence—which we might consider as first and second visual fields—then sustained attention generates a third optical field as a result of their interaction. The third field is not merely optical but also meditative and emotional, suggesting things felt rather than seen. To paraphrase Martin, the third field is where the inner eye contemplates all that we have seen, and emotions rise to the surface.

This exhibition was made possible by the generosity of Marty Jones and Christine Armstrong, as well as generous donors to the Suzette McAvoy Exhibition Fund.

About the Artist

Will Sears received his BFA from Syracuse University. His work has been presented in solo and two-artist exhibitions at Massey Klein Gallery (New York, NY), Dowling Walsh Gallery (Rockland, ME), and Buoy Gallery (Kittery, ME) (with Jenna Pirello), amongst others, and featured in group exhibitions at venues including CMCA, Tiger Strikes Asteroid (New York, NY), Elizabeth Moss Gallery (Falmouth, ME), and SPACE Gallery (Portland, ME). Sears has been awarded residencies at the Ellis-Beauregard Foundation, the Vermont Studio Center, and Hewnoaks, and has created murals across Southern Maine. This is his first solo institutional exhibition.