McKenzie Fine Art

55 Orchard Street, New York, New York 10002 212 989 5467

	Maureen McQuillan: Coloratura October 16 - November 23, 2025
	view exhibition	Through her process-driven paintings, McQuillan has long investigated color perception and complex linear movement. The work begins with black painted wood panels, ranging in scale from an intimate 10 inches square to an expansive 30 x 40 inches. After covering a panel with transparent medium, she overlays white lines in acrylic. The lines are then disrupted with pours of pure transparent ink colors mixed with acrylic medium. The compositions are ordered using random rules particular to each work. New color tonalities are created through this overlapping process. As successive layers build up, the linear elements create a web-like network through which varying patterns of colorful oval elements are viewed. The paintings have a range of tonality, from nearly monochrome, to a few colors, to multi-colored. In some, ovals and lines appear to be in a state of dissolution, while in others, adjacent elements create rippling optical vibrations evoking wind patterns on watery surfaces. By shifting the direction of her applications, she is able to create kaleidoscopic arrangements. The forms and vibrant colors call to mind flickering flames and organic shapes such as petals, shells, and parts of the body. The suggestion of space is often deeper than the physical layers, and the linear patterns always create a sensation of expansive and pulsating movement. Among the undulant layers of line and color, McQuillan has also imposed simple patterns of black and white stripes, blocks, and dashes. These geometric elements serve to both emphasize and disrupt her spaces. McQuillan’s exhibition title, Coloratura (literally “coloring” in 18th century Italian), references a highly embellished operatic singing style, as well as a pandemic-era song by Coldplay, which speaks of a multi-colored nebula where “everyone belongs” and it is “the end of death and doubt.” Similarly, McQuillan thinks of her artmaking as a defiant yet hopeful action, and a place where others can find joy and connection. Born and raised in New York City, Maureen McQuillan was educated at Columbia University and the New York Studio School. Since the early 1990s she has been exhibiting her work in solo and group shows in galleries and museums throughout the United States as well as in France, the UK, Costa Rica, and Hong Kong. McQuillan's work has been reviewed in many publications, among them The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The San Francisco Chronicle, Artnews, and Art on Paper. McQuillan’s permanent public art installation, Crystal Blue Persuasion, commissioned by the MTA’s Arts & Design program, consists of multiple laminated glass panels spanning three sides of the elevated 36th Avenue N/W subway station in Astoria, New York.

55 Orchard Street, New York, New York 10002 212 989 5467
email info@mckenziefineart.com