Stepped and Folded, Sam Gilliam, 1998

"Sam Gilliam should be no stranger to Washingtonians. He is one of the city’s preeminent artists and has been a significant presence here for nearly thirty years. He is also among the nation’s most accomplished abstract painters. Over the decades, he has not wavered in his commitment to a rigorous but exuberant modernist style- even as the various forms of postmodernism have successively seized the attention of the art market. While increasing numbers of contemporary artists have turned to political content or to narratives about race, gender, or sexuality, Gilliam has continued to explore the expressive possibilities of color, pattern, texture, and geometric shape, all the while pushing toward more complex, allusive, even sculptural form.