Beyond Paint

The show's proposition was direct: painting is not the only discipline that produces work that belongs on a wall. March 2025 brought walnut sculpture, encaustic panels, textile work, and pieces that answered no single category.

Julie Anne Mann's Traveler is walnut, 27x69 inches — a wall piece that casts shadow before you see its surface, the grain of the wood doing more compositional work than most painters permit themselves. Elizabeth Beers, a self-taught Bainbridge Island resident, brought encaustic panels where the wax surface holds light differently at every angle: approach the piece and it changes. Beyond Paint was not a manifesto. It was a demonstration that the question of what a painting is remains genuinely open.

“A walnut wall piece that casts shadow before you see its surface. The question of what a painting is remains genuinely open.”