Kim McCarty "Boys & Girls"
Morgan Lehman Gallery
This event has ended.
Morgan Lehman Gallery presents Boys & Girls, a solo show of new watercolors by Kim McCarty. This is the artist's first solo show with the gallery.
After working for many years in oil paint, McCarty began using watercolor when her California studio was destroyed by wild fire. Since then, McCarty has embraced it as her primary medium and has set out to execute her works on a larger-than-life scale. McCarty uses a wet-on-wet technique, saturating the form with water before applying pigment with a loaded brush to the paper. When the pigment hits the water-laden paper, it creates soft ripples of color and gradations of value, expressing both flaws and perfection, and the dichotomy between uncertainty and focus. The process is extremely fleeting and an image is either created or lost within seconds. Working with watercolor, particularly a wet-on-wet technique is notoriously difficult to control, and it can take weeks to create a work that has the artist's desired delicate balance of realism and abstraction.
McCarty's imagery and compositions are derived from personal photographs. She uses these images as specific references to develop a particular pose or composition. The figures or "beings" all seem related, familial - perhaps a human subspecies. They are capable of communicating a feeling or a mood that is universal, yet deeply intimate and personal. Some figure's express longing, others seem sexy and intriguing, some innocent and unaware of our voyeurism. In these boys and girls we see our emotional selves reflected, and catch a glimpse of the fragility and tenuousness of the human experience.
[Image: Kim McCarty "Single Strand" (2012) Watercolor On Paper, 74h x 45w in.]
Media
Schedule
from October 25, 2012 to January 12, 2013
Opening Reception on 2012-10-25 from 18:00 to 20:00