Exactly What I Was Feeling

There are moments when a work of art seems to arrive before language. Before explanation. Before we have found the words ourselves. Exactly What I Was Feeling brings together the work of Gwen Hardie, Marcel Rozek, and Luke Diiorio, three artists whose practices are united by an extraordinary command of color, yet whose approaches could not be more distinct.   Across sweeping gesture, layered panel surface, and measured restraint, each demonstrates that color is not simply seen; it is experienced.

The exhibition unfolds through shifts in scale and rhythm. Marcel Rozek's monumental canvases command the room with sweeping gestures and expansive fields of color. Their bold physicality is impossible to ignore, creating a palpable sense of movement and momentum that envelops the viewer. His paintings possess both confidence and generosity, inviting us to inhabit their space rather than simply observe it. Gwen Hardie's paintings offer another kind of presence. Her large-scale works suspend color within luminous, atmospheric surfaces where even the most subtle transitions carry remarkable emotional weight. Time seems embedded in each painting, revealing an artist deeply attuned to material, perception, and the quiet power of sustained looking. Their contemplative presence provides a steady anchor within the exhibition. In contrast, Luke Diiorio's intimate paintings are built through delicate layers of ombré color across organically shaped, stacked panels.  Each work becomes an exercise in precision and quiet observation. Their modest scale encourages taking a step forward to reveal the nuanced layers, material reveal and color transitions.

Together, these works create an environment that moves between opposites we all recognize: boldness and repose, exuberance and stillness, the expansive and the intimate. There is the rush of color that meets us unexpectedly, and there is the quiet that follows. The commanding presence of a monumental canvas gives way to the whisper of a carefully layered surface.

In the world beyond the gallery, we encounter these same emotional registers every day. We move through moments that are vibrant, charismatic, and full of momentum, only to find ourselves seeking stillness, reflection, and gentleness. These artists use color as a tool, one that is capable of carrying all of it. It can embody confidence and vulnerability, celebration and contemplation, certainty and uncertainty — often simultaneously.  Exactly What I Was Feeling is an exhibition about recognition. It is about the rare experience of encountering a work that gives shape to an emotion we have carried but could not quite name. In that moment, color becomes more than composition or theory. It becomes memory, sensation, and understanding. It becomes exactly what we were feeling.