Annabel Emson / After Dark / oil on canvas / 2008 / 214 x 244 cm / Wyer Gallery

 Teetering on the edge of abstraction and representation, Emson’s paintings reflect the patterns that arise naturally in the structure of the world around us. However, despite drawing inspiration from both the natural and manmade environment, she does not depict recognizable landscapes in existence somewhere but, working intuitively and spontaneously from memory, alludes to some less tangible or fleeting place or space, rooted in memory perhaps but which has become something other, independent, self-determining and lawless.

Her paintings seem to reflect a joy taken in the physicality of painting as well as paint’s material possibilities. She plays with juxtaposition of colour, its temperature, intensity and emotional pitch; the manner and form of the application of paint and the part played by rhythm and sound, both in the process of painting itself and the form and structure of visual composition. This experimentation with the language and application of paint has lead to an ostensibly disparate note in a collection of canvases that differ in scale and style and where abstract works containing broad, energetic or gestural brushwork sit alongside others in which more considered figurative ideas have worked their way in alongside layers of abstraction to suggest a narrative or something more descriptive.

However diverse at times, the works are linked to each other by an index of recurring motifs and images, referencing and building upon each other as part of an extended conversation. Reduced to their core, these are paintings about their process and each work a consequence of a new question that is understood most fully in its relation to its counterparts.{Read More…}

Katy Moran / Pecking Order / 2008 / Acrylic on canvas / 18 x 15 inches (46 x 38 cm) / © Katy Moran. All rights reserved. Courtesy of the artist and Andrea Rosen Gallery

Today I got over to Andrea Rosen Gallery to see the abstract paintings of UK artist Katy Moran. An artist of my own generation, it was great to see how she is struggling to find her own way in abstraction. Walking into the space I was pleasantly surprised to see tiny canvases hanging at eye level on the two-story bare walls. A quick loop around the gallery, at the relatively safe 5 ft to 6 ft distance from the canvases, left me feeling a bit disappointed – a disappointment that seemed to be magnified by a longer more considered glance across the room. My first response was that they paintings had no life. They appeared to lack spacial development, to be centralized compositions of oval or kidney shapes in a rectangle, the colors had no juice or luminosity.

However, first impressions are often deceiving and this is definitely the case with Katy Moran’s paintings. As I stood on the precipice, considering whether to wander on to another gallery, or stay and give her work a more considered visit, I asked myself, “What’s really going on here? What is she up to?” Having these thoughts, I stepped up to a painting titled Pecking Order and got in real tight – maybe I was a foot or 10 inches away. Suddenly the whole painting came alive. The space opened up, they gestures and strokes had energy and movement, the colors that a moment ago seemed washed out, tired, and just the plastic of acrylic, found some pizzaz. I could see the foam bubbles of acrylic paint too vigorously stirred, that had burst and been captured in the surface. I could see the lint and the studio dust and I felt compelled to brush off the surface, like brushing the lint on the back of a friend who has just taken off her sweater. I chuckled realizing that she had drawn me in. Brought me in physically and that in close proximity, Katy Moran and her paintings began to speak. Or maybe they always already had been speaking, just in a quiet and soft voice. I made another loop around the gallery, sliding right up close with my nose in the pictures.

After, I read the press release and the write-up on the web, my opinion is forget what they have to say because the person writing has no idea how to look at an abstract painting. The dichotomy between abstraction and realism is not relevant to the viewer’s experience of the painting. Sources and references to recognizable imagery seem to be only a curious piece of trivia. If trying to find the image is your game, then it is better to pick up a Where’s Waldo? book, you’ll have more success. Otherwise if you fall into that only too human trap of finding the image on the cave walls or in the clouds then you miss the whole experience of the paintings. You miss the intimacy of standing with Ms. Moran as she brushes her canvas.

Katy Moran is on view at Andrea Rosen Gallery thru April 23