Kim McCarty's early paintings, suggestive of stills taken from moody, enigmatic scenes from film noir movies, were distinctive for their clear reference to the narrative progression of the film reel itself, and its multiple, grid-like succession of images. Suzanne Wright currently lives in Brooklyn and works in New York City. Her work has been seen in The White Room at White Columns and recently has shown in Exit Art and Artist Space.
Kim McCarty: Recent Paintings
Kim McCarty's early paintings,
suggestive of stills taken from moody,
enigmatic scenes
from film noir movies, were distinctive
for their clear reference to the
narrative progression
of the film reel itself, and its
multiple, grid-like succession of
images. When she made the
move from the hard surfaces of those
early paintings to the softer, more
absorbent surface
of paper and from oil to watercolor, she
stayed with the grid to assure
structural integrity
for the ever-growing profusion of images
that tumbled out onto the paper. As she
gained
confidence with the medium, however, she
began to permit the grid to literally
deconstruct,
allowing each segment to find its own
dimensions and placement, slipping out
into new
arrangements of varying shape and
density.
Since her primary thematic focus
remained the human body, the grid soon
began to reformulate
in new patterns, suggestive of the
skeletal structure or the internal
organs-the liver, or the heart.
This new approach invited McCarty to
slip between the interstices of the
individual elements,
finding a unique way to explore the
hidden physiological depths of being
human, and by
extension its psychological and
emotional depths as well. Confronted
with this impressive
series of works on paper, the viewer
becomes the voyeur of an interior,
private landscape of
images and obsessions, pain and
pleasure, eros and thanatos.
In her most recent paintings, McCarty
explores these discoveries in still
greater depth and
complexity. Barely recognizable here,
the grid balloons out into large areas
of image or narrative,
with generous spaces left as bold
passages of silence in between.
Changed, too, is the palette-
ranging from deep browns to bright
oranges and yellows-newly assertive in
its boldness. And,
adding a rich texture of social and
historical reference to McCarty's
vocabulary of images, a
whole new range of borrowings from art
history is introduced, creating a
bass-line subtext to
reflect and amplify the lyrical melodies
of the artist's intensely private
musings on the
vulnerability of the human experience.
Suzanne Wright: In Sugarland
"We spent the few days that followed
cramming our bodies with pleasure."
Jeanette Winterson The Passion
Beginning her process with terse,
colored pencil drawings, Suzanne Wright
forms an anatomy
and bone structure, and creates the
names of the 600 pound women she depicts
in her small,
clear, cast resin floor sculptures.
While characters like Sunshine and
Butterscotch may reappear,
every piece differs from the next in
attitude, pose and materials. One woman
poses seductively
in her bed (which appears in related
drawings as a giant, dreamy piece of
layer cake), another
bends over backward in worship of the
sun, both with convincing dexterity.
These formal considerations are enhanced
by the sumptuous culture jewels
imbedded carefully
in each abundant example of female form.
Whether filled with marble like gum
balls, glitter like
translucent crystalline sugar, these
figures retain both the playfully
seductive appetite for rich food
and the ultimately allure of
pornography, which is the impetus for
Wright's original drawings.
They are ultimately repulsive and
hysterical. Unlike the pop icon, Torso,
Arman's 1961 skinny
mannequin cast in clear polyester resin
and filled with severed hands, Wright
allows the viewer
to peer through the thick landscape of
flesh into the lush, colorful innards of
these women. This
presents the truth behind their apparent
pleasure-- inside the heavy shell is a
disco ball's reflective intensity.
Suzanne Wright currently lives in
Brooklyn and works in New York City.
Her work has been
seen in The White Room at White Columns
and recently has shown in Exit Art and
Artist Space.
Opening Reception: September 9, 2000 6 - 8 p.m.
For more information contact: Richard
Stewart
212.967.6007
De Chiara|Stewart, 521 West 26th St.,
New York City 10001
Gallery hours: Tuesday - Saturday
11:00-6:00 pm