Corner 2 Gallery is pleased to present Always Never, Auckland artist Linda Geary’s first solo exhibition with the gallery. Geary’s practice has long been rooted in collage, cutout, masking and deliberate construction. She builds color, shape and pattern through layered compositions, creating paintings where structure and modification unfold simultaneously. In “Always Never,” this foundation remains, but the new work moves into a quieter, more atmospheric atmosphere while maintaining structural tension. The color palette shifts towards soft, weathered tones. These compositions give a sense of openness, light, and spatial depth, while the underlying frame continues to do its thing.
Geary constructs her paintings through layered applications of acrylics and oils. In some works, layers of paint are wiped or washed away to reveal earlier decisions. In other works, translucent layers are laid over existing forms, partially obscuring them. Although these gestures move in opposite directions, they all produce a similar effect: a ghost in the composition. Shapes hover between appearing and disappearing. What is built never fully settles, and what is erased never fully disappears. Decision-making and structure reappear.
the title of the exhibition, never neverreflects the balance and compression of time, as earlier moments are still active within the current surface. Large paintings may resemble weathered or partially exposed fragments of murals. The grid and recurring geometric elements still have a greater fluidity, are less dominant, but are still structurally present. The restraint of the muted palette introduces a different tension, one rooted less in color intensity and more in atmosphere and spatial depth.
A series of smaller paintings are explored in parallel with the larger paintings, providing concentrated, high-energy studies of form and color. They create space for risk and permission, allowing larger works to unfold with greater openness and expanding the language of the exhibition at different scales.
never never Marks an expansion of Geary’s practical parameters. By loosening certain structural guardrails while maintaining intentionality, she creates paintings that are both open and assured.
