Maggie Michael

"OPEN END"
October 14 – November 11

G FINE ART is pleased to present Open End, Maggie Michael’s third solo show with the gallery.

This show marks a departure from the clear, suggestive works of the past. Michael set out in a complex direction with the explosion drawing exhibited in the show Blasts of September 2005. In this new work she responds to destruction with a cautious desire for control and repair. Her paintings are suspended worlds of violence and growth, somewhere between living and dying..

Michael’s titles, bold and compact, press into the nuances and intricacies that exist within the paintings. The words, although maintaining multiple inferences, reference her experience and associations with the work. Throw describes a physical and psychological release. Cage can refer in part to her older works, executed with more restraint, or the boundaries that trap an evolving image or state of mind. Cradle suggests Michael’s experience as a mother, nurturing her pieces from a destructive potential, or guiding a viewer’s experience with seeing. Icon: Sweep Under powerfully and sensually suggests both bodies and water.

As for the pieces themselves, these works seem to bleed, breathe, and pulse.. The thin delicate lines that spread and weave around the painting gather together the fractured planes of dripping latex house paint and spray-painted volumes, they hold us in a moment of unpredictable and spectacular experience.

Imagine the sudden manifestation of a storm cloud dripping with rain and exploding with lightning in the middle of a clear sky, or a floating world attempting to stay intact as if by a visceral force.

Maggie Michael was recently included in New Acquisitions at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and Redefined: Modern and Contemporary Art from the Collection at the Corcoran Gallery of Art.

Gallery Hours are Tuesday – Saturday, 11am – 6pm
1515 Fourteenth St. NW Washington, DC 20005 T. 202.462.1601 F.202.462.1604
www.gfineartdc.com