Marcia Wood Gallery: 3 at Site 109, NYC

Marcia Wood Gallery presents:

3.

Kate Javens

Alan Loehle

Timothy McDowell

Site/109

109 Norfolk Street
In the Lower East Side between Rivington and Delancey

Wed - Sun 12 - 6

Exhibition: September 11 – October 3, 2015

Reception; Saturday, September 19, 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.

Marcia Wood Gallery is delighted to announce an exhibition of painting by nationally acclaimed artists Kate Javens, Alan Loehle and Timothy McDowell at Site /109 in New York's Lower East Side. Kate Javens (NYC) presents her powerfully rendered, dream inspired menagerie of historic reference, Alan Loehle (Atlanta) combines classical and modern elements in a new order to ennoble the present, and Timothy McDowell (New London, CT) creates revelatory images of our environment and planetary situation. All three artists are making this their debut showing of new work, re-evaluating their core response to art making.

In this body of work I attempt to define my understanding of the current environment through observation and depiction. The subjects are elemental: earth, water, fire and air. They belong to the canonical list of universal components. These elements have historical relevance in both literature and art as symbols of Nature's force. Their balance or
imbalance is the determining factor for the preservation of life or its destruction. These elements may elicit either fear or awe, according to the viewers' experience.
These works originate from an investigation of the urgency stirred by the present natural imbalance. They poetically encapsulate my anxieties, fears and hopes of being in this world. My initial reaction to the current state is later transformed into denunciation of misused resources and the hope for restoring them.
My response to pressing environmental issues informs my painting method. Unlike traditional work that entails a slow preparation of ground and substrate, my painting expresses urgency through direct action on raw linen with paint and hot wax. This strategy, however, is not to be interpreted as mere spontaneous gesture. The immediacy is in fact accompanied by careful re-evaluation of the issue that translates into the complexity of positive brush strokes and negative open forms of linen: the symbols of my evolving language.