Big meanings by themselves don't improve art, as small meanings don't diminish it. But, in how we value any object of our experience, there is a scale of significance besides a scale of goodness. On that scale, my own long-held admiration for Stephan soars. An English medieval mystic observed that we mistakenly feel close to things that we have clear ideas of. The truth is opposite.
Clarity measures our distance from an object of thought.
In such vagueness, the roots of our being clutch for nourishment. We hate such indeterminate sensations, as a rule. Stephan's lyrical skill makes us begin to love them, as they must be loved if we are ever to be contented with our actual existence. Stephan' s new paintings play with the yen. The generally paler painted ground outside the shapes' contours obligingly goes atmospheric to accommodate them, but only while we look at the shapes.