NYAB Event - Julie Hedrick "Red"

Julie Hedrick "Red"

Nohra Haime Gallery

This event has ended.

Concentrating herself on the color red, with its infinite shades and values, Hedrick creates monochromatic surfaces characterized by their luminosity and nuance. The series was prompted by the artist’s heartfelt feelings about a society and its environment running amok, “leaping from one extreme to another.”

Hedrick creates red color fields charged with implied content and emotional impact in an attempt to comment on the current atmosphere of our existence, and on the manifestations of the color red in our everyday life– in our body, in nature, in human relationships, in sensations, in society, in world events. Her compositions are metaphors for life and modern human experience - both adverse and wondrous. Dark, reddish-brown tinted forms that appear to be nebulous clouds and flaming vapors, as seen in "Memories of Fire" and "Red Rain," executed in 2009, clearly reveal the artist’s sentiments of tension, fear and uncertainty, as she deals with the harsh reality of our times. The mood of the scenes is enhanced with crusty areas constructed with coarse paint brushes and palette knives.

The presence of this primary color in our physical surroundings is illustrated in works such as "Lunar Red," "Red Feather Rising," "Red Sky" and "Red Earth." In a similar manner, physical and abstract sensations of our daily lives – like pain, pulsations, guilt, anger, courage and passion – are also perceived in Red. Hedrick conveys this conception with the red lust of "Love" and the blood scarlet of "Red Heart," where the spectator can almost sense the palpitating organ. The color of red is likewise associated with the forces and energies that connect living things. This notion is implied in "The Dream," 2009, with Hedrick’s subconscious realization of her concerns and reflections that in turn gave birth to the series. In this work, the full spectrum of the color appears to transform and change positions in the pictorial space. Translucent under layers and thin washes of oil paint, subtly interrelate with deep hues and growing paint textures, creating vibrating effects that confuse the eye and pull the viewer in and out of the canvas.

In this manner, as Hedrick explores the effects and affects of this fundamental color in our existence, she creates transcendental compositions that provoke red vibrations in the spectator.

[Image: Julie Hedrick "The Dream" (2009) oil on canvas 84 x 105 in.]