Dream Life
Amy Stewart’s series Dream Life reflects on those ethereal moments that linger after waking from a dream. In sleep, the lines between reality and fantasy disappear, and the past mixes up with the present. Those we’ve lost in life return to us in our dreams, where even the knowledge of their absence temporarily disappears. In dreams, we get to hold our loved ones again, laugh with them, look at their faces. And though waking can bring longing and a renewed feeling of loss, it also feels like a miracle to have met them again at all.
Stewart’s layered shapes, whether solid colour or folded with crease lines, seem to hold onto one another. Suspended mid-canvas or anchored to the edge, her clusters of geometric figures are pierced by bright lines, cutting across shadowed backgrounds. In painting these pieces, Stewart gives visual expression to those early morning moments, when the joy of seeing old friends curls around the corners of the day, and the dreamy remembrance feels like a gift from the past.