Christopher Dunlap, Maureen Mcquillan and Laura Watt Exhibition

McKenzie Fine Art

[Image: Maureen McQuillan "Untitled" (2020) Ink and acrylic polymer on wood panel 15 x 15 3/4 in.]

This event has ended.

McKenzie Fine Art present an exhibition of recent paintings by Christopher Dunlap, Maureen McQuillan, and Laura Watt.

The abstract painters in this exhibition explore a biomorphic rather than geometric approach to form. All embrace patterning, repetition, and layering in their work and are further united by a strong use of color. Additionally, they each welcome intuition, chance, and deviation as part of their working process. Celebration of the irregularities of the handmade is evident throughout the work.

Christopher Dunlap creates rhythmic, playful, brightly colored oil paintings. The rectangular canvases are laid out in irregular checkerboards, with segments containing patterned variants of petal shapes and banded ovoids. The segments alternate in color and form, arranged in rows or radiating outward from the center, in turn creating larger diagonal patterns in the work. Dunlap notes, “Since my paintings begin with a grid—which is a pattern typically seen as structured and rigid—the process of making them by hand is essential for creating work that imparts a sense of intimacy and directness… Once the grid is established, I’m interested in how any deviation apart from the composed verticals and horizontals can create a depiction of space that unfolds outside of these directions.”

Maureen McQuillan’s work is the most process-oriented of the group. Her luminous paintings reflect her longtime interest in scientific investigations of color. Working with layers of acrylic polymer interspersed with colored inks, she creates multiple translucent veils of color that ripple and bend across the dark surfaces. While several of the compositions are dense and heavily layered, others take a more reductive approach with a focus on a single form or gesture, or as an exploration of black and white. In many of the paintings, straight black bands define the multiple layers, rising and receding within those spaces as the folds of color overlap and undulate.

Movement is key in Laura Watt’s oil paintings: irregular and layered forms within forms radiate outward from the center and along diagonal vectors, pulsing and undulating across the surfaces. Many of Watt’s vividly colored paintings are divided by color shifts as the forms on one side loosely echo those on the other in structure and density. Shapes mutate and evolve as they travel, and in the smallest paintings, evoke a kaleidoscopic quality. Watt cites a variety of influences on her work, ranging from Ukiyo-e “floating world” pictures, animation from the Japanese Studio Ghibli, British printmaking from the Grosvenor School, and Italian Futurism.

Gallery hours are Wednesday through Saturday, 11 to 6 pm, Sundays, noon until 6 pm, and by appointment on Mondays and Tuesdays. Mask wearing inside the gallery is mandatory, and we are happy to provide hand sanitizer. We are committed to maintaining proper social distancing for your safety and will limit the number of gallery visitors to no more than six at a time.