NYAB Event - Melinda Stickney-Gibson “inside/outside”

Melinda Stickney-Gibson “inside/outside”

Littlejohn Contemporary

This event has ended.

Littlejohn Contemporary presents a one-person exhibition, “inside/outside”, new paintings by Melinda Stickney-Gibson.

Melinda Stickney-Gibson’s new series of paintings continues her investigation into the nature of paint and painterly gesture. Influences for these works can be seen in the paintings of Joan Mitchell, Robert Ryman, Cy Twombly, Agnes Martin and Nancy Spero. Neither completely abstract nor representational, her paintings reflect upon the natural world just outside the door of her Catskill Mountain home, as well as her more internal, personal narratives.

Stickney-Gibson greatly values the solitude and quiet of life in the Catskills. Her work is characterized by a diaristic, personal approach. Paintings with multi-layered surfaces begin with written marks; incorporating fragments of writing from her own journals, favorite writing samples by others, and universal words such as “yes, “maybe”, “no?”, and “her”. These marks represent specific moments; each one has an intention which once fulfilled is checked off and covered over. The paintings have an underlying hidden narrative which is eventually erased when a final white top layer of paint covers the gesture. In this way Stickney-Gibson is sharing but still keeping her stories personal. Most evident in this work is the artist’s relationship and longtime love of the physical act of painting, and her visceral love of the paint itself. She states that “though not comfortable with being labeled an Abstract Expressionist, she is in fact abstractly expressing herself and that, for her, painting is a very physical activity.”

The works in this exhibition depart from those that came earlier in that they are quieter, more meditative paintings that give an invitation to pause and reflect. They are more streamlined and reduced to what the artist feels is most important. She considers this to be “an exercise in discipline— keeping the work simple yet confident.”

Stickney-Gibson begins her process with photographs she takes of her outdoor environment and then uses them as references. Though these are not landscape paintings there is an unconscious horizon line, which is not surprising given the sweeping view from her window to a distant mountain range, and her lush natural surroundings. After many years spent between New York City and upstate New York, the artist moved full time to the Catskill Mountains in 2003. The influence of nature is clearly evident in these abstract works –but they are also reflections of the artists’ internal psychic landscape. The blue abstracted hydrangea flower in “Know, No (…still)” has a vibrant intensity, whereas “Here” is solemn and melancholic, with a sense of stark alone-ness.

For Melinda Stickney Gibson, painting is like life – messy, full of accidents and underlain with semi-orderly structures that bend and disintegrate under pressure of real life action. Her lyrical paintings are not so much painted as allowed to evolve, growing by accretion over periods of weeks or months (or at times, even years), as loose brushstrokes are laid over looser grids, fields of color laid down to partially obscure sketchy marks, and traces of covered layers revealed by a subtle cut through the surface. The final compositions are full of evidence of the process that created them, yielding a subtle complexity that could never have been envisioned at the beginning. — Eleanor Heartney

This is Melinda Stickney-Gibson’s 6th solo exhibition with Littlejohn Contemporary. She has been exhibiting her work since the mid-1980’s. Originally from the Midwest, and currently based in Woodstock, NY, the artist has been living and working in New York for over 30 years. She has had over 25 one-person exhibitions, and has participated in numerous group shows throughout the country. In addition, Stickney-Gibson curated “DIALOGUES” at Kouros Gallery, NY, NY, in 2009, and “LINE” at Butters Gallery, Portland, OR, in 2012. Her work has been reviewed in ARTnews, ARTS Magazine, REVIEW Magazine, Neoteric Art, ARTNET, and others.

Media

• Painting

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