Permutation as Refinement, opens with an artist’s reception on Saturday, February 15th from 5:30 - 8:30pm, and will run through March 21st, 2020. The artist will be in attendance and will participate in an artist's talk at 5:30pm. Robert Sagerman’s densely layered impasto paintings swirl and gradate in brilliant hues of oil or silicone, hand milled by the artist from elemental pigments. Sagerman methodically places each stroke with a palette knife, keeping a ledger of the thousands upon tens-of-thousands of marks, which eventually correspond to the title of the completed work. This disciplined method of working parallels Sagerman’s scholarly inquiries applied to his own artistic practice. The show’s title, Permutation as Refinement, directly correlates to the artist’s personal interest in the practices of Medieval Mysticism, an area in which he is a published PhD. The Hebrew word for "permutation," refers to the meditative, creative process of letter combination. The same word is used to convey "refinement", which in this context refers to the literal purification of metals in fire, as well as the metaphorical trial of facing the inner self, with regards to the creative process.