Imagine stepping into a sunsetting sky that is coming undone and re-forming in a glowing palette reminiscent of Georgia O’Keefe and filled with floating abstract symbols and forms lightly reminiscent of Hilma af Klint and Mondrian. The scene feels Southwestern and slightly alien, but then it quietly slips into complete meditative abstraction before your eyes.

Meg Lipke’s newest paintings were conceived around her interest in and relationship with the British Neolithic ceremonial site, Long Meg and Her Daughters, but her canvases barrel out of antiquity with soft, acidic hues and slightly anthropomorphic takes on the well-studied and enigmatic stones and carved symbols still in existence today at the site. Overhead views of the arranged stones appear as hovering appendages and topographies in Lipke’s paintings, seemingly holding the secrets of time and shared histories by referencing the unique concentric rings, angular lines, and circles (called “cups”) that still survive on these stones and which have stood the test of time for millennia.

Theories about these Neolithic sites range from envisioning them as public gathering spots for trade or connecting at certain times of the year to believing the locations were used by witches for special ceremonies. The concept of female empowerment and celebration at this sacred spot is not lost on the artist. As Lipke reflects, “I wondered what life was like at the time these monuments and monoliths were created, and if women might have had more agency and autonomy then than we have been led to believe.”

All of Meg Lipke’s new canvases curiously possess one rounded corner. Physically, the gesture feels playful and a little cartoonish, but conceptually, it makes a deliberate statement. The curve is powerfully feminine, and it implicitly states that these works are not simply paintings; they are objects speaking about and relaying the truths of today and also the moments from our futures and pasts that we can only imagine.

Meg Lipke (b. 1969 Portland, Oregon) was raised in Burlington, Vermont, and Cheshire, England, and she currently lives and works in Ghent, NY. Lipke received a BA from the University of Vermont and her MFA at Cornell University. She has had solo exhibitions at Broadway Gallery (NY, NY), DOCUMENT (Chicago, IL), Van Horn (Dusseldorf, Germany), and Burlington City Arts (Burlington, VT).