Forwarding
Felix Benton, Adrian Ocone
March 13 – April 26, 2026
Adrian Ocone, Gazebo, 2026, 22 x 28 inches (55.9 x 71.1 cm), Acrylic and oil on panel
Stump Gallery is pleased to present Forwarding, a two-person exhibition of new paintings by Felix Benton and Adrian Ocone.
Forwarding brings together two practices invested in structure as both framework and provocation. Across distinct approaches to abstraction, Benton and Ocone engage systems – grids, repetitions, spatial divisions – not as fixed endpoints, but as points of departure. Order is established only to be tested, softened, or set into motion.
Ocone’s paintings often begin with gridded architectures and reflective geometries that expand outward into atmospheric fields. Structured compositions open into environments where land, sky, and surface intermingle. Organic forms and shifting reflections interrupt the logic of the grid, allowing the paintings to oscillate between precision and dissolution.
Benton develops his work through underlying systems that resist closure. Line, color, and form operate provisionally, adjusted and reconfigured as each canvas accumulates its own internal rhythm. Rather than presenting a singular, stable image, the paintings reveal themselves as the record of ongoing decisions, layered, revised, and materially present.
Throughout the exhibition, repetition and spatial ordering create a sense of forward momentum. Frameworks do not confine the work; they reorient it. Structure becomes a means of producing variation, drift, and perceptual instability. In this way, abstraction emerges not as a closed language, but as an active process, one that unfolds in real time and anticipates viewers whose modes of looking are themselves in flux.
Forwarding positions painting as an open field: disciplined yet elastic, deliberate yet responsive. Rather than acting as final statements, the works operate as propositions – signals sent outward, inviting sustained attention and future encounters.
Text by Ray Steele
Felix Benton (b. 2000, El Paso, TX) is a painter working in Brooklyn, New York. He received a BFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2023, with a concentration in Nature, Culture, and Sustainability Studies. Benton has presented exhibitions at galleries including Nicelle Beauchene Gallery, New York, NY; Do Right Hall, Marfa, TX; and Site Gallery, Brooklyn, NY. Benton has served as an assistant curator at Ballroom Marfa, as well as a selected lecture at The Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas.
Adrian Ocone (b. 2000, Ojai, CA) is an artist based in Queens, NY. He earned a BFA in painting at the Rhode Island School of Design in 2023. Ocone’s work has been presented in solo exhibitions at Speed Shop, Providence, RI; OCHI Projects in Ketchum, ID. Group exhibitions include Toby78 in Queens, NY; The Living Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; and Small Works in San Francisco, CA.
