Ritual Gathering
Bodies of Water, Bodies of Light by Laura Malone
The Abstracts’ Dilemma by KC Rosenberg
by Steffi Drewes
Continuing through October 19, 2024 at Mercury 20, Oakland, California
The concurrent solo shows at Oakland’s artist-run Mercury 20 Gallery highlight the dynamic work of Bay Area artists KC Rosenberg and Laura Malone. Each painter has a distinct way of harnessing narrative abstraction through an interplay of light and shadow, crescendos of color, and rich materiality. In Bodies of Water, Bodies of Light, Malone explores feminine subjectivity and relationships in dreamlike waterscapes of women, while Rosenberg builds a compelling visual syntax of lines and dots to process her experience with memory loss and recall in The Abstracts’ Dilemma.
Laura Malone Paints Water Women and Others
Oakland artist captures what things feel like
By Janis Hashe for The East Bay Express
Oct 1, 2024
Laura Malone remembers being proud of her painting of yellow kittens when she was about 6. Coming from a family of distinguished artists, she also recalls a childhood in which the scents of oil paint and thinners were commonplace.
Today, she paints in oils as well—but with variations. Her solo show, “Bodies of Water, Bodies of Light,” at Oakland’s Mercury 20 Gallery through Oct. 19, consists of 18 works in oil, some of them layered with polyester Dura-Lar film and/or combined with acrylic or spray paint. Some of the pieces are painted on copper, which, when viewed from different angles, gleams and creates a feeling of movement.
Art and Cake Interview
by Kristine Schoemaker
What keeps you excited in the studio?
Chasing after what Catherine Bradford called “that one good painting.” Always trying to dig deeper, to reach the most essential. Knowing I will never reach it is strangely exciting, kind of like swimming toward the bottom of a dark sea, not knowing where the bottom is or walking blindfolded through your own house.