Brigid McGivern “Outside the Gates”

Ashok Jain Gallery

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Ashok Jain Gallery presents Outside the Gates, the first solo exhibition by the Chicago-born, New York-based artist Brigid McGivern. The suite of paintings employ a scheme of vivid colors and bold contrasts that focus on the journey of escaping cultural norms and strictures that hinder individual and societal growth.

In this recent work, McGivern uses body language to hone in on pivotal moments of both connection and detachment. Hard shapes combined with drawing-like brush strokes within the paintings represent the contrasts that are in all of us.

Acrylic paint, oil and soft pastels, and both panel and canvas surfaces serve together in this body of work, creating new visual and emotional insights. The bold color choices in this series portray past communication choices and behaviors, and also reflect the artist’s intention of inspiring fearless future choices that can mold a world not driven by ego or fear. The rawness in this series reaffirms the seriousness of the artist’s singular experience as well as the energy of individuals on society at large.

As a trained graphic designer and mixed media artist, McGivern says she “finds it crucial that perceived unlikely unions make stunning results.” These unlikely unions are present throughout this series as the paintings go back and forth from abstraction to figurative. Inspiration from photographic images begins each piece; however, the final work is the imagination of the artist as she changes, adds, subtracts, and manipulates the canvas and materials.

Brigid McGivern (b. 1983, Chicago, Illinois, lives and works in New York City) has been in group exhibitions in New York, NY, Fort Lauderdale, FL, Bologna, Italy, and in prestigious art fairs such as Miami Basel and Art Expo New York. Her work in is private collections in New York NY, Chicago, IL, Indianapolis, IN, Cincinnati, OH, San Diego, CA, Jupiter, FL and Washington D.C. McGivern has recently agreed to donate two works to a private hospital in New York, NY.