Jonathan Casella’s Blue Sentinel marks a decisive evolution in the artist’s practice—retaining the graphic precision and visual velocity of his earlier Double Star paintings, while stripping them down to a denser, more self-contained syntax. In this new body of work, the compositions operate less like constellations in motion and more like sentinels: stoic, standing forms bristling with intention, bearing a kind of structural vigilance.
Rendered in a moody, weighted palette of blues, browns, and saturated blacks—with assertive flashes of pink, lavender, and pale yellow—the works deploy sharp geometries and weapon-like motifs that teeter between architectural schematic and abstract icon. The visual language is distinctly Casella’s: hooked and bladed shapes recur like ceremonial tools; fields of patterned dots evoke steel rivets or tactical adornment. But what’s most striking here is the palpable density of each canvas. These aren’t just energetic pictures—they are formidable constructions, self-contained and fully armored.
Each painting reads as a watchful presence, a hybrid of sculpture, signal, and emblem. Though abstract, the forms suggest bodies in tension, poised between action and stasis. Platforms and base-like gridding structures at the bottom of several compositions subtly reinforce the notion of display or elevation, as though these works were not just paintings but figures presented for contemplation—or command.
Lines arc and jitter across surfaces, tracing raw, expressive overlays atop otherwise calculated geometry. This visible hand imbues the pieces with both immediacy and interiority. The balance between rigid structure and spontaneous mark-making gives the works a compelling tension, one that mirrors the conceptual push-pull between stoicism and threat, between containment and charge.
What’s most affecting, though, is the sense of brooding presence that radiates from these forms. They don’t ask to be understood. They simply are—striking, strange, and unwavering. In Blue Sentinel, Casella achieves something rare: a maximal presence through minimal narrative, a pure visual authority that asserts itself without flinching.
Jonathan Casella (b. 1986, Houston, TX) holds a BA from San Francisco State University. His vibrant, abstract works have been exhibited widely in the United States and internationally, with solo exhibitions at Harper’s Gallery in New York, WOAW Gallery in Hong Kong, The Pit in Los Angeles, F2T Gallery in Milan, and Gallery Mei in South Korea, among others. This is his second exhibition with M+B, following his 2021 solo presentation Doublestar. Casella lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.