Three Compositions

Upstream Gallery proudly presents the Upstream Focus exhibition: Three Compositions by David Haines in the Private Viewing Space. 

In his recent work, David Haines continues his exploration of the dark, refracted reflections seen in the black mirrors of our digital devices—images that blur the boundaries of the picture plane. By translating this visual language into both drawing and painting, he delves into subjects that resist clear definition—elusive, fleeting, and always in flux. He
suggests that these nuanced spaces have the potential to challenge the increasingly polarized binaries of contemporary life, proposing that what is depicted is not fixed, but instead occupies an ambiguous, shifting terrain.

This theme is particularly evident in an ongoing series of near-monochrome paintings of flowers. Aware that the viewer typically approaches the flower as one of art’s most benign subjects, Haines challenges this assumption by disrupting and complicating these conventional associations. Rather than direct representations, the works suggest reflections— compositions of refracted and reflected light on glass or on the canvas surface itself. The true forms of these compositions reveal themselves only gradually, embodying both care and melancholy. Flickering and refracting, they slip in and out of focus, seemingly shaking as they resist the viewer’s gaze.

The flowers gesture toward attempts at care, tenderness, and mourning, yet remain elusive and unreachable. At the same time, the still life carries a quiet agency, alluding to the symbolism of 17th-century Dutch still lifes—symbols of a trading empire whose legacy, now under scrutiny, seems increasingly unstable. In this way, Haines’ flowers— ephemeral, hypnotic, and speculative—resist stillness, mirroring the unsettled nature of the history they evoke.

Image: Composition (Two peonie roses in a green vase), David Haines, 2025 - 50x60cm Oil on linen

Three Compositions | David Haines
6 September - 4 October 2025
Private Viewing Space at Upstream Gallery
Kloveniersburgwal 95, 1011 KB