"In Slow Burn, Chanel DesRoches presents a body of work that holds tension, where gestures build and pause, yet remain in flux.
Built through layered marks and repeated returns, the paintings carry a sense of hesitation alongside insistence. Oil paint, oil stick, graphite, and pastel accumulate into surfaces that feel active but contained. In works like Lip Biting and Collide, marks shift between control and looseness without fully resting in either. Each painting holds its own rhythm, looping and pausing before continuing. Decisions remain visible, left in place rather than smoothed over or absorbed. The work resists clarity, staying close to process and allowing uncertainty to persist.
DesRoches approaches abstraction as a means of working through and alongside these conditions. The paintings do not reach closure but remain in motion, held within a longer duration. Slow Burn is less concerned with outcome and more with inhabiting a feeling as it gradually takes shape."
