The Architecture of Looking
JOSUE BESSIAKE
The Lights are on, but no one’s Home
Melanie Chard
October 4, 2026
Installation images by CJ Benninger
Since the opening of Josue Bessiake's solo exhibition, The lights are on, but no one's home, people who are familiar with his practice keep asking about this exhibition's visual transition from realism toward abstraction and the use of the window as a reoccurring image. I understand their curiosity because my first introduction to Josue's painting was was through his figurative work and it is something he and I have discussed extensively the last few weeks.
(Left) JOSUE BESSIAKE, Lavatory Conversation, 2023 | Oil on linen, 30 × 40 inches
(Right) JOSUE BESSIAKE, Figure on a Double Square, 2022 | Acrylic on Panel, 48 × 48 inches
Yesterday, we had a conversation between Josue and collector and curator, Kendale Jones where this idea was explored further, but in case you missed it, or if you are not familiar with Josue as an artist, I thought I would provide some context for the evolution of his practice as a “painter with a little p” as he likes to describe himself. Josue has stated that between realism and abstraction there are “a million places to pause” and as you read further, perhaps you will gain a better understanding of how this exhibition constitutes one of those resting points.
(Left) JOSUE BESSIAKE, A Breaker's Anatomy I, 2024 | Acrylic on collaged monoprint
(Right) JOSUE BESSIAKE, One Last Look, 2024 | Oil on linen
Josue has dealt with ideas of domestic space and home throughout his young career. His series Anatomy of a Home focused extensively on chairs and built environments. But when I really looked back at some of his earlier paintings I realized the window has been showing up in his work along. What he has done with this exhibition is take something that once existed at the edges of his paintings and moved it to the center.
JOSUE BESSIAKE | For the Eaters I & II, 2025
The window functions as both a familiar object and a metaphor. It is something we encounter across places and cultures as a shared architectural language. But it also shapes how we see. A window gives the viewer access to another space while keeping us physically separate from it. In Bessiake's work we are given a view, but never the whole view.
JOSUE BESSIAKE, First Night Out, 2025 | Handmade acrylic on wood and canvas combine | 64 × 45 inches
There is a subtle boundary between painting and sculpture that the work in this exhibition is inhabiting. In these new paintings, the viewer is still encountering color, surface and composition, but we are also noticing depth, joins, openings and supports.
Installation view “The lights are on but no ones home”, 2026
“Josue is showing us how things are made in a way that means the architecture inside the painting becomes the architecture of the painting itself.”
Installation view “The lights are on but no ones home”, 2026
Josue has rarely given us the whole picture in his paintings. Many of his more recent compositions have felt like fragments of memory. A familiar moment will be obscured or he'll show an ordinary object from an unexpected angle, providing just enough information for us to recognize something without fully knowing it…and that way of looking remains at the center of this new work.
Installation view “The lights are on but no ones home”, 2026
So while the figure has receded, the partial view has not. Now it is the window that we encounter in fragments, the edge of a frame, a curtain pulled across the glass, a rectangle of light or a partial sill. We are never quite given the complete view, but we don't really need it because it's not about the object so much as the feeling it gives us and what I really love about this exhibition is the poetry and restraint of this transition.
Installation view “The lights are on but no ones home”, 2026
If you missed the talk, we will have video in the coming days which I will share. You also have one more week to view the exhibition. The lights are on, but no one's home closes October 10th and it's one I would strongly recommend seeing in person. We are open Thursday through Saturday from 12 - 6 PM.
See you Soon!
