Orders of Emergence: Gus Monday and Julian Lombardi

Gus Monday and Julian Lombardi’s latest bodies of work explore the tension between containment and emergence, presenting paintings and drawings that both define and undo the conditions of contemporary experience. Their exhibition brings together two distinct practices engaged in the construction and destabilization of psychic architectures.

Monday’s new work maps the spatial systems that organize contemporary subjectivity. Using modernist and symbolic architecture, he diagrams how ideology, governance, and desire are maintained. While figures are absent, the viewer is positioned within these seductive yet unstable environments, experiencing a state of suspended participation. Trained as a draughtsman, his compositions use measured precision and material process to translate observation and social critique into form.

In contrast, Lombardi’s recent paintings, developed in Umbria at the Vannucci Artist Residency (supported by Dreighton Family Foundation), mark a shift toward a more embodied visual language. Moving beyond his earlier exploration of digital and ecological realms, these works function as fields of apparition where body, signal, and memory converge. His "blue forms" act as unstable manifestations moving between organism, signal, relic, and machine—effectively making the concept of pressure visible. 

While Lombardi introduces forces that rupture and reconfigure our perceptions, Monday establishes the structured conditions of experience.

Together, these artists offer a shared inquiry into how images hold a significant psychic charge within a world increasingly governed by systems of control and surface. Their works invite viewers to question the boundaries between order and chaos, prompting reflection on the ways we navigate constructed environments and shifting realities. 

- Susan Sherrick