In Speaking of Absence I, 2022

Oil, limestone, and metal oxide on canvas
56 x 42 in

How can a painting practice grapple with the Anthropocene? Brennen Steines looks at the ground beneath our feet and the apparatuses that we use to explore it. The soot, the soil, the concrete, and the stone bear witness to our actions in the here and now. Steines’ work echoes the substrates of our collective footprint; resembling fossilized slabs that crackle with clairvoyance of the future by speaking in the weathered voice of the past.

Steines received his MFA in Painting and Printmaking from Yale in 2022.