Maureen Gallace

Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery is pleased to feature recent paintings and drawings by Maureen Gallace from March 25 to April 22nd. With this new body of work Gallace reveals a deliberate painterliness which is both a departure from, and a natural progression of her earlier images.

Echoing early American landscape traditions and conventions in their choice of imagery, the works may appear charmingly naive at first glance. With extended viewing, however, it comes obvious that the manner in which these landscapes are reddened result in images which are not quite what they seem. The color ranges from somber grays and icy blues to luminous oranges and yellows, all underlaid with various hues of green. The texture, while far from lush, evinces a tentative sensuality. The scale is small, inviting close, intimate observation.

Used to depict oddly geometric buildings without doors or windows, boats left sitting neither quite in the water nor on the beach, and gates leading to densely wooded enclaves these formal qualities create a sense of unease. As viewers we find ourselves asking the question “what is going on here” We long to fill the paintings’ repetitive emptiness with meaning. At once familiar yet strange, realistic yet surreal, these works evoke a contemporary longing for simplicity with disquieting astuteness.

Maureen Gallace

Nicole Klagsbrun is pleased to present Maureen Gallace’s first solo exhibition at the Gallery. A reception for the artist will be held on Saturday September 11 from 5 to 8 pm.

Maureen Gallace is a New York artist who makes small scale landscapes with one or two houses, a line of trees and sometimes a boat. Her technique is very direct, the paint is applied minimally, and the weave of the canvas as well as the trace of the brush is apparent in each painting.

Maureen Gallace’s work echoes early American landscape painting; the paintings seem simple and self explanatory, but at the same time things are not quite what they seem. The landscapes are deserted, the houses have no openings, the lines never quite line up.

At once cozy and discomforting, realistic yet surreal, they have a contemporary longing for an ideal simplicity.

We end up seeing the geometry of these plantings not as pure form but as expression of feelings.