Solo Show: Bodies of Water, Bodies of Light
September 13- October 19, 2024
Gathering Darkness, Gathering Light | Oil on Copper Panel | 28.25” X 54” | 2024
“As her dissolute figures (most often women) emerge from or perhaps melt into the natural world (most often watery), Malone’s gestural atmospherics hover unendingly at the threshold of picture and pure pigment—not so much a paradox as an embodiment of the psyche’s capacity to hold several kinds of knowledge at once.”
Exhibition Details:
Location:
Mercury Twenty Gallery, 457 25th Street, Oakland, CA
Opening Date:
September 13th, 2024
Exhibition Duration:
September 13- October 19, 2024
Artist Reception:
September 14th, 4-6 PM
Oakland Style Week Event:
October 12th, 3:00 PM
For more information, please visit mercurytwenty.com
or contact Laura Malone at 510.910.1472
The Golden Hour | Oil on Copper Panel | 38 X 54” | 2024
Statement
"Bodies of Water, Bodies of Light," was first conceived in a water aerobics class that I started taking after a knee injury. There is a moment toward the end of the hour when the whole class throws their arms up in the air and whoops in collective joy – this exuberance is what I wanted to capture in the first painting, “Not Drowning, Waving.” Below is a detail of this large (54” X 72” ) oil painting on linen. The figures are almost life sized because I wanted the viewer to be immersed in the exhilaration of that moment as I was. These women are “of a certain age” and reflect something I noticed in that class – they are now liberated from society’s expectations, as well as their own and can enjoy a freedom of expression that was previously contained in youthful self-consciousness.
Detail: Not Drowning, Waving | Oil on Linen | 54” X 72” | 2024
The series "Bodies of Water, Bodies of Light," is an exploration of feminine subjectivity. Delving into the psychological themes of friendship, self-relationship, and the body as a wellspring of joy and depth I use body language and color to express the way nuances of emotion ebb and flow.
In these works, I think of the water itself as another character – a kind of figure itself –that along with the paint itself – engulfs, joins and penetrates the figures, acting as a metaphor for the flow of energy that underlies all of our experience, connecting us to each other, to nature, and to inner life. Sometimes layered over the figures, water also signifies the shield between myself, the viewer, and my experience. Through this ambiguity, like the many layers of paint, I’m inviting the viewer to consider the complex emotions that relationships contain.
Thrownness | Oil on Linen | 48” X 36” | 2024