A selection of recent works by Maine-based painter Jay Stern (previously featured here). Born in Columbus, Ohio, Stern received his BFA in Painting from the University of Cincinnati and MFA in Arts Leadership from Seattle University. His paintings aim to mythologize the present moment. By highlighting the relationship between interior and exterior, domestic and public, Stern contemplates the dynamics of interstitial spaces and the systems that govern them. The result is visual language that transforms the ordinary, constructing a new world from the wreckage of a previous life, where versions of one’s self can be examined and collapsed. In this way, seemingly quotidian moments dissolve into metaphor, exposing layers of psychology yet to be unraveled. While absent of of human figures, Stern’s work is a portraits of individual lives lived.