But when I really look closely, they aren’t necessarily always specific animals. Dolphin silhouettes walk across the bottom in 3 Dolphins (2020), and a single paw print shows up in Home in the Mountains (2020). SM Shifting gears a bit, and to give these “glyphs” names, I keep seeing animals in your work or at least sense their presence. Installation view of Catherine Haggarty: An Echo’s Glyph at Massey Klein. Each form has its own life, its own energy they hover in space and are autonomous, not always connected to a character. Ledger glyphs have to be specific, but mine are open and ambiguous which speaks to your comment about the work being porous. For me, glyphs get created through movement, through work, and through time, whereas Indigenous glyphs are specific and used for identification in pictographs. So for an echo to have a glyph, an identity marker actually seems impossible, which interested me for the title of the show. An echo in itself is ephemeral, and it is fleeting. I’ve begun to wonder how I can make my own and reference this beautiful and intelligent history in my work. I love the way they float above the protagonist's head in ledger drawings. I have been studying glyphs as a structure to hold meaning and identity. Does this relate to the title of your show, An Echo’s Glyph, in any way?ĬH I teach a Non-European Art Histories class at the School of Visual Arts, and we spend four weeks on Indigenous art and ledger drawing. SM These thoughts seem to parallel how so many aspects of your paintings live at the edge of becoming or dissolving. I am interested in how drawing can relate our hand to our eyes and mind all at the same time, whether well-crafted or imperfect. We all rely on drawing, writing, mark making in some way. The lines are all in an effort to communicate. I see the way the lines move from beautiful letters to almost nothing, and it is heartbreaking but somehow a bit beautiful. I’ve watched my dad fade for a decade from a rare neurological disease, and I see how his writing went from completely fine to illegible and now to nothing. Can you talk a bit more about this?ĬH I pay attention to line, to letters, to the way handwriting fades, the way contour drawings provide acute information on seeing. SM You mentioned drawing a little while earlier. As a result I embrace teal and phthalo blue in certain paintings to oppose the warm orange and yellow I tend to rely on for light. I have been thinking about how light can be different, how it can be dark and cool, not only warm. SM Is this interplay between the two mediums what brings about your full-spectrum palette? The paintings give off a light that often seems to advance from within the canvas.ĬH I like that idea of an entire spectrum in a painting. I think the saturation and weight of the oil stick on top of airbrush offers a really specific kind of space, a texture that eludes touch.Ĭatherine Haggarty, Home in the Mountains, 2020, oil stick and airbrush on canvas, 48 × 36 inches. Oil sticks provide the opacity, thickness, and density I crave. ![]() One of the best things an airbrush does is that it distances the hand while simultaneously allowing specific control depending on how close you are while working where soft color (atmospheric) and thin lines mirror drawing. I use materials that my hands and brain desire, and I consider how materials can work toward bringing new levels of optics. SM So, are the different types of “touches” almost foils for each other?ĬH I appreciate that you consider them a foil-they are elusive. Layers of oil stick, air brush, and pencil mark reference a wide range of touch and movement in the paintings and hopefully activate these sensory shifts. Texture and surface come into the work in a pivotal way. ![]() It’s as if you have to touch something to know it’s real, but if you can’t, if it’s an image, then you have to rely on other senses. ![]() In painting, I think the viewer has to try to recognize an image and then assess its function and value to the painting. Touch and comfort are paramount to happiness and growth for most everyone. “It is the first language and the last, and it always tells the truth.” What do you think about this?Ĭatherine Haggarty I think that is a beautiful sentiment, and I agree. “Touch comes before sight, before speech,” writes Margaret Atwood in her novel The Blind Assassin. Sangram Majumdar Touch is a word that I keep coming back to in my head in relation to your new paintings. Perhaps this strange sense of retinal pleasure and pain is what the captive in Plato’s Cave felt when first walking into the sun. On the occasion of Haggarty’s first solo exhibition in New York City, An Echo’s Glyphat Massey Klein Gallery, we sat down over Zoom and across state lines to talk about the kaleidoscope of light and color radiating from these new canvases. C) a scavenger-hunt underwater or in some faraway galaxy
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |