After was begun at the same time as the paintings Cove and Port. It was completed once those paintings had been installed in the space onboard the MV Britannia for which they were commissioned.
The painting was part of my solo exhibit Afterimage at Millersville University and was reproduced in the catalog accompanying the show. After was also included in the 2016 exhibit The Next Chapter at Chautauqua Institution, where it was mentioned in a review of that exhibit:
The rich blue and gold of Stoltzfus’ large, painted abstractions draw viewers into the gallery. These glimmering works — some actually made with gold and palladium leaf — represent the modernist tradition. Indeed, like Kandinsky and Rothko before him, Stoltzfus seeks to represent through form and color the immaterial essence of pure spirit. In “Scarab,” he depicts a subtle luminosity emerging from a dense network of blacks. In “After,” the glow is more assertive, and suggests the final blast of a fireworks display, its image reflected out across the surface of a dark lake. Each composition is built through a laborious process of painting one circle after another until the entire surface of the canvas has been encrusted with the repeated pattern. Some may find Stoltzfus’ repetition of a single form cold or mechanical, perhaps at odds with the artist’s larger goal; others may liken its repetitive logic to chanting or prayer.
— Patricia Briggs, The Chautauquan Daily
