In these new large-scale paintings, the forms float, collide and hover free of gravity and devoid of place. Parts of the canvas are left unpainted, elements of underdrawing visible. The use of vivid color, rather than the expected palette of ruin, complicates any attempt to sum up the situation.
Von Lintel is pleased to present an exhibition of new paintings by Medrie MacPhee. This exhibition marks the artist’s first solo show with Von Lintel Gallery and her seventh one-person show in New York.
Over the years MacPhee’s subject matter has taken various forms—industrial sites, floating synthetic worlds, darkly humorous future hybrid species, abandoned survivors’ encampments. These landscapes explored notions of physical and psychological dislocation.
In these new large-scale paintings, the forms float, collide and hover free of gravity and devoid of place. Parts of the canvas are left unpainted, elements of underdrawing visible. The use of vivid color, rather than the expected palette of ruin, complicates any attempt to sum up the situation.
Yet these places coalesce into something readable. The densely packed elements in the paintings appear stacked, resembling something largely architectural in nature. They play on the cusp of both collapse and renewal. It is this moment that MacPhee offers, in which all context is removed, somewhere between the tangible and imaginary, where meaning itself might be reconstructed.
Medrie MacPhee has exhibited nationally and internationally for over two decades. Her paintings and drawings appear in numerous public and private collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Edmonton Art Gallery, Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal and the Gallery of Greater Victoria. A recipient of a 2009 Guggenheim Fellowship, MacPhee is the Sherri Burt Hennessey Artist-in-Residence at Bard College. The artist lives and works in New York.
Opening 27 May 2010, 6-8pm
Von Lintel Gallery
555 West 25th Street, New York
Hours: Tuesday through Saturday, 10-6 and by appointment