03/03/2026
curated by opens Thursday!
Objet petit a: new works by Peter Gynd features selections of recent paintings by Peter Gynd curated by Audra Verona Lambert. The artist initially began this ongoing series of still life paintingsâwith a focus on mason jarsâback in 2021. The jars originated from care packages of jams and preserves Gynd would receive in the mail from his rural British Columbia-based mother while he was living in New York City, with these becoming especially treasured during the pandemic. These jars and seals made their way across international borders and four time zones, their flavors speaking to long-lost memories. Gynd held onto these jars to use in his home and art studio; as drinking vessels, left-over storage, or for holding art materials. The artist even relocated with them to Houston, TX, in 2023. Along the way, the jars became both muses and meditations: serving as new additions to the visual language of a painter increasingly engaged with process-based and durational approaches to painting. Gynd continues this fifth year of exploring mason jars, adding in vessels and objects assembled in his studio âaltarsâ to create composites that offer as a stand-in for fundamental experiences of everyday life.
When curating the exhibition, Verona Lambert selected Gyndâs work to expand on the Lacanian consideration of the objet petit a: the âcause of desire.â The curator notes, âMuch as the jars serve as vessels that create a desire to capture an enduring impression of themselves in this series of paintings, the objet petit a, or âlittle other object,â speaks here to the cause of desire for connection visually to these objects, thus recognizing the void implied by itself: forming a paradox. While the glass can be filled for use or seen as an object to be painted, the two actions can never take place simultaneously, so the Lacanian objet petit a asserts itself here in Gyndâs body of work.â Visitors to the exhibit are welcome to reconsider the meaning behind the various vessels, still life scenes and altar depictions in Gyndâs work to better draw connections to their own understanding of memory and desire, object and subject.