Nothing Is Ours But Time

The act of painting is an attempt to capture a moment, to preserve a gesture or an image in a suspension of pigment and oil. The artists in “Nothing is Ours But Time” use painting as a way to mark time and to contain it. Their work is anxiously focused on capturing fleeting everyday moments. Selina Trepp uses and reuses only the materials currently present in her studio to make work. Ultimately, she will leave behind little more than digital images for her descendants to contend with. Mel Cook is a modern-day Vanitas painter, reminding the viewer of his or her own mortality. Karen Azarnia's triptych of paintings documents a handprint on a window that disappeared over the course of an afternoon drive. Time still slips through our fingers, but every moment spent in an act of creation is one that we can count as ours.

Image: Melody Saraniti, it never really lands, 2018.