Sam Reveles
Poulaphouca: New Paintings and Works on Paper

Talley Dunn Gallery
August 24 – October 12, 2019

Poulaphouca: New Paintings and Works on Paper features a body of recent paintings and drawings inspired by the landscape of County Wicklow, Ireland, where Reveles lives and works. These intricate paintings evoke atomic structures, neuron synapses, and expanding galaxies—exquisite meditations on scale and space. Meanwhile, Reveles’ use of color creates a dynamic sense of movement and spatial depth. Works like Elemental Span, with its cluster of energetic nuclei, maintains a tenuous balance between the infinite and the miniscule. Space expands and contracts simultaneously, and each shape refracts, revealing increasing levels of complexity.

Despite the abstract nature of his paintings, Reveles likens them to the dynamic experience of gazing across a lake or walking through a field. Everything we observe is necessarily in relation to its larger context, and perceptions change depending on our proximity, position, and the direction of our gaze. So too with the works of Poulaphouca: they are impossible to absorb in one glance, instead offering multiple perspectives and details depending on the viewer’s position.