Stefan Gonzales: Field Research
March 06 - October 03, 2027
Seattle artist Stefan Gonzales brings an obsessive focus to often-overlooked industrial resources: materials displaced from the land and put to work to support everyday existence. Field Research—their first solo museum exhibition—spotlights rock salt, used to deice roads. Sculptures, photographs, archival cabinets, and a film document the artist’s sustained observation of their collected materials, including how rock salt disintegrates and crystallizes in water.
These careful studies also reveal the material’s unexpected beauty as it changes form. Offering a nuanced critique of American art histories of the 1960s and ’70s—from Minimalism’s use of industrial materials and repetition to Land art’s interventions in natural environments—Gonzales connects this humble substance to larger issues of labor and resource extraction.
Stefan Gonzales: Field Research is organized by Georgia Erger, Curator.
Generous support provided by Frye members.
Our work is supported, in part, by an award from 4Culture.
Stefan Gonzales. Crystal Crater, 2026. Dye sublimation aluminum prints. 24 x 36 in. Courtesy of the artist
Stefan Gonzales. Salt Canyon 001.1, 2026. Steel mud tray, melting salts. Courtesy of the artist
Stefan Gonzales. Clean, 2025. Archival inkjet print on fine art torchon rag. 20 x 30 in. Image courtesy of the artist