Way Stations features a stunning assortment of new abstract paintings by New
York-based artist Joan Belmar. Spherical forms, often filled with transparent
textural passages, populate Belmar’s compositions and are often combined with
segmented lines, dots and portal-like constructions. “Circles represent the infinite”,
says Belmar, adding that they “suggest, like a Russian doll that contains one inside
the other, world or way stations within other worlds.”
Belmar offers multiple vantage points and structures in his compositions. It’s as if
we are looking at surface topographies of unnamed planets through a telescope or
perhaps glancing down at outstretched maps to plot routes through unknown
terrain. A focal point of the exhibition is two tondo paintings, each 92 inches in
diameter, which were created especially for the UMMA exhibition. These circular
works highlight the collage-like approach and layering seen in many of artist’s
compositions--- solid blocks and bands of bold color share space with spherical
forms that have a pattern overlay of hand-painted dots. Belmar was born in Chile
and immigrated to the United States in 1999. His works are in the collections of the
Microsoft Corporation, Capital One Corporation, Fidelity Investment, among others.