Benjamin Pritchard's 'Wayfarer' at SFA Projects Explores Abstract Painting as Theater

Benjamin Pritchard's solo exhibition 'Wayfarer' at SFA Projects from October 3 to 28, 2018 presented modest-sized abstract paintings organized by geometric motifs. The show at 131 Chrystie Street in New York City featured works like 'Zebra', a black canvas with white stripes that might reference Victor Vasarely, and 'Nighttime' with swirls resembling an oil slick. Pritchard's compositions employ parallel lines, blocks, circles, swirls, horizontal divisions, zig-zags, and red elements. His painting 'Dos Equis' displays overlapping boomerang shapes with layers ranging from thin veils to thick impasto. 'Fire' uses gestural red strokes with green accents to metaphorically represent internal drama. The artist's approach treats painting as theatrical artifice, aligning with what Paul Gagner terms 'abstract art with quotation marks'. Pritchard's work draws comparisons to Chris Martin and Forrest Bess while exploring psychological space through distilled visual language. Paintings reveal void-like spaces created by nuanced brushstrokes and drips, as seen in 'Zebra' where white on black suggests the Guggenheim Museum's interior. The exhibition demonstrates strong command of abstraction while questioning what paintings can and cannot be.