McKenzie Fine Art: Maureen McQuillan 2022 Exhibition

55 Orchard Street, New York, New York 10002 212 989 5467 fax 212 989 5642

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	Maureen McQuillan: Two Ways About It April 9 - May 15, 2022
	For the past decade, Maureen McQuillan has been investigating the perception of color and linear movement through process-driven paintings that exploit the inherent properties of her materials. Beginning with black painted wood panels, McQuillan applies multiple layers of clear acrylic substrate onto which she systematically distributes pure ink colors. Additionally, white ink lines are incorporated into each layer and are manipulated to fold and undulate. As layers accumulate, thin oval veils of luminous color are formed. The resulting compositions exhibit a web-like structure as translucent colors lie adjacent to and overlap opaque elements. The vivid translucency of the ink colors is akin to effulgent fused glass, and in McQuillan’s paintings the optical blending of layered hues yields unexpected chromatic results. New to these paintings is the addition of hard-edged geometric elements. Solid black bars and rectangles in rows, grids, and fragments are interspersed among the translucent layers, purposely disrupting the colored shapes and white ink lines. This additional structural element serves to emphasize spatial relationships in the paintings, contrasting with the gestural and undulant lines. The effect is of disrupted oscillations and pulsating patterns, as forms and colors recede into or emerge out of a mysterious, dark space. Also new is that several of the paintings are near-monochromes, while others have stronger and more boldly contrasting colors than in earlier work. McQuillan notes that, “each painting is a problem of opposites, not to be resolved, but to coexist as a combined language…color is hard to pin down, shifting mysteriously, and spatial relationships seem to come and go.” Maureen McQuillan was born and raised in New York City and was educated at Columbia University and the New York Studio School. She has been exhibiting her work in solo and group shows in galleries and museums since the early 1990s, 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, commissioned by the MTA’s Arts & Design program, is made from multiple panels of laminated glass spanning three sides of the elevated 36th Avenue N/W subway station in Astoria, New York.