Wayne Toepp

Wayne Toepp is a Hudson Valley artist living in Poughkeepsie and maintaining a studio in Hyde Park. His process of building up translucent layers of paint develops atmospheres and spaces that are rich in art historical references, from northern romantic painting to haunted surrealist tableaus. The muted interiority of his works suggest half-lit chambers and the barely discerned outlines of presences – everything in a state of luminescent flux evoking memories of place.

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Wayne Toepp’s studio process is first and foremost engaged with the material nature of paint while also acknowledging specific art historical modes. The organization of deep space in his paintings has clear historical precedents; yet these are effectively tempered by other elements that emphasize paint as material and the painting as a discreet physical object. Light as a central concern in Toepp’s works is rendered through a process of intricately layered translucency, yielding twilit spaces in which vague diaphanous forms coalesce. The forms that the viewer encounters variably reference figures, landscapes, or dimly lit interiors, while also referencing the physical materiality of paint.