The Plan, the altar, the watch
Stephen Deffet
July 10 – August 16, 2026
“...and it was as if suddenly, without any warning, that all the little things that make up a
life could be accounted for only in brief, squinting glances over the shoulders of strangers.
He stopped to retrace his steps: setting down his tools, dragging himself towards the still damp linens
hanging on the other end of the balcony, brushing down the thousands of tiny peaks that had formed
in the places too light for gravity to take care of for itself. Parting the fabric, looking out into the dense,
gentle slope of the gulch one last time before the sun dropped below the upper reaches of the canopy.
Their shadows had darkened, and they moved more carefully than they did earlier. He stole a fi-
nal glance, watching their silhouettes slink in and out of view behind the trees in some sort
of playful, coordinated taunt. A spurt of bile rose up again, singeing the back of his throat.”
Text by Jack Deffet
Stump Gallery is pleased to present The Plan, the altar, the watch, a solo exhibition of new paintings
by Stephen Deffet. Deffet’s work is built around a cold, voyeuristic detachment. Sourcing imagery
from the flat perspective of domestic and transient documentation, his paintings construct a strict
third-person vantage point. Figures and spaces are observed rather than inhabited, framed by a
removed narrative eye tracking a world that seems entirely indifferent to being watched.
The canvases present a fractured, unstable retelling of these spaces. The viewer is put in the posi-
tion of an accomplice, looking through a proxy whose specific motives and biases remain unstated,
leaving the underlying reality of the scene deliberately unresolved.
The oil paintings rely on dense blocks of black and heavy tonal weights to anchor quiet, mundane
scenes. Deffet’s handling of the medium is soft and muted, clouding the clarity of the image into a
haze that holds the viewer at a deliberate distance. While these ordinary views remain flatly un-
monumental, they are rendered entirely closed off from easy consumption.
This tension is formalized by the heavy framing devices built directly into and around the supports.
The interlocking, notched canvas borders and inset panels don’t merely frame the images; they
bracket them, reinforcing the sense of a view that has been cropped, captured, and systematically
filed away.
Stephen Deffet (b. 1993 Columbus, OH) received his BFA in Painting + Drawing from Ohio Uni-
versity in 2017. He has exhibited both nationally and internationally with DARMO (Paris, France),
Galerie Dengyun (Shanghai, China), Stilllife (New York, NY), PRP (Dallas, TX), and Below Grand
(New York, NY), among others. His work has been featured in several publications including èmer-
gent magazine, The Brooklyn Rail, and Office magazine. He lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
Stephen Deffet, The plan 2, 2026, Oil on panel, dyed linen on panel, 42 7/8 x 58 1/8 inches (108.9 × 147.6 cm)
