Brennen Steines. As Above, So Below

DIMIN presents As Above, So Below , a new body of paintings by Brennen Steines that engages the alchemical Law of Correspondence—the proposition that inner and outer worlds are structured by the same transformative forces. Across eleven works, the exhibition unfolds as a field of abstract terrains that examine materiality, space, time, and corporeal vulnerability. The surfaces are constructed through processes of accumulation and evaporation. Layers of oil, limestone, copper, mica, and emulsion are built up and allowed to fracture under internal tension. This process forms slabs that evoke both microcosmic and macrocosmic structures, such as tectonic plates, cellular topographies, and celestial spaces. In some works, molten skins of material hover against dark, open grounds, suspended between formation and dispersal. In others, gravity exerts pressure: horizons tilt and buckle, as though the image were caught in the midst of structural change. A palette, of volcanic reds, oxidized blues, metallic golds, dusky violets and dense blacks, shifts across the exhibition, suggesting both cosmic vastness and compressed geological duration. Material process is central to the work. The cracking of surfaces, the pooling of pigment, and the settling of particulate matter parallel systems of erosion, pressure, and renewal. These reactions unfold slowly and unpredictably, embedding a sense of time into the work itself. The paintings operate as records of transformation—sites where material destabilization produces unexpected coherence. Steines’ practice is also informed by his experiences with a lifelong autoimmune condition, which has repeatedly brought his body into states of crisis. The work does not depict this history directly; instead, it embodies its microscopic logic. He approaches painting as a field of unseen turbulence—where the surface feels as though it is breaking down and disintegrating through its own creation. Corrosion, fracture, and oxidation are not treated as signs of loss however, but as generative forces. Conceptually, As Above, So Below positions painting as a site of correspondence: between scale and perception, inner and outer, micro and macro. Viewers encounter paintings that shift in orientation and scale—microscopic fields expand into celestial space; geological mass collapses into intimate terrain. The exhibition offers not representations of these landscapes, but perceptual thresholds in which transformation is ongoing and unresolved. Together, the works form a constellation of surfaces shaped by pressure, time, and contingency. Steines’ scientific approach to abstraction considers painting not as image alone, but as matter in flux—where collapse and coherence remain inseparable. Brennen Steines (b. 1993, Rockford, IL) presented his first solo Dispersion Field with DIMIN in 2023, and is currently based in New Haven, CT. He received an MFA from Yale School of Art in 2022, attended the Saas-Fee Summer Institute of Art in 2022, and received a BFA with an Honors College degree from University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee in 2018. Steines was a Yale University CCAM Blended Reality Studio Fellow from 2021 - 2022 and attended the Yale Norfolk School of Art through the Ellen Battell Stoeckel fellowship in 2017. He was an Artist in Residence in Plum Blossom Initiative’s Bridge Work-04 in 2018. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at DIMIN, New York, NY; Chilli Art Projects, London, UK; Museum of Wisconsin Art; West Bend, WI; Jeffrey Deitch, New York, NY; Green Hall Gallery, New Haven, CT; The Alice Wilds, Milwaukee, WI; Usable Space, Milwaukee, WI; and Galerie Kenilworth, Milwaukee, WI.

What to expect:
Painting