SUN AND CLOUD, 2024, Acrylic on canvas, 70 x 75 inches
Reynolds Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of CLOUDLAND, a solo exhibition of all new paintings by Steven Cushner. The exhibition opens on Friday, September 5, 2025 with a public reception from 5 – 7 pm. The exhibition will run through October 24, 2025.
THUNDER AND LIGHTING, 2024, Acrylic on canvas, 56 x 47 inches
THUNDER AND LIGHTNING (detail)
Incorporating repetitive strokes, pattern-like forms, and the drip and splash of paint, Steven Cushner creates works both gestural and concrete. Playing with abstraction and representation, he invents imagery inspired by the natural world. Circular, spiral, fan-like, or open-ended shapes vibrate with intensity as their fluid lines emerge from watery backgrounds to shape meditative, sinuous patterns. His dynamic compositions capture this organic energy, mimicking nature with their cyclical, ordered quality. Loosely rendered forms and splashy backgrounds allow for open interpretation of Cushner’s imagery. Whether the viewer discovers clouds in the sky, the flow of the tides, or patterns of leaf and flower in his playful abstractions, an electric energy and a quirkiness emanates from his paintings….. perhaps conveying the root of Cushner’s passions and spontaneity.
Photo sourced from the Washington Post
CLOUDLAND is defined as a realm of imagination and visionary speculation, far removed from the everyday and the practical.
Clouds are like paintings. A cloud is almost something, never still, always changing shape, form, color, and mood. Clouds can be calm and peaceful, but can also be a threat, a warning, full of trouble.
Paintings are like clouds. A painting is never still, never fixed, constantly changing shape, form, color, direction. Paintings occupy a liminal space, a transitory place, following a wandering path of possibilities.
I hunt for transitory spaces in nature and these become starting points for paintings. These could be an incoming tide, a racing river, clouds floating across the sky. The world of nature is full of change and possibility, and so is each painting. My paintings and I wander in these spaces. At times we are moving forward, or backwards, or sideways, or not at all. We follow false leads, or find ourselves back where we began. If the painting and I are lucky, we arrive at someplace new, someplace unexpected, and someplace surprising together.
– Steven Cushner, 2025
Cushner was born in Cleveland, and later moved to receive his Master of Fine Arts from the University of Maryland and Bachelor of Fine Arts from Rhode Island School of Design (1980, 1976). He currently lives in Washington, DC, where he teaches at George Mason University and previously taught at the Corcoran School of Art. He is the recipient of two Visual Artist Fellowships from the DC Commission on the Arts Humanities, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and the Distinguished Alumni award from University of Maryland. This is Cushner’s 6th solo exhibition with Reynolds Gallery; his first solo show with the gallery was in 1995. Steve has had a long and prosperous relationship with Reynolds Gallery, and we are excited to showcase his work once again.
SOLSTICE, 2024-2025, Acrylic on canvas, 41 x 88 inches