Solo Show Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto, April 2021

14 November, 2021

Medrie MacPhee’s presented new paintings and works on paper at Toronto’s Nicholas Metivier Gallery, from April 1-24, 2021. The exhibition was titled The Weight of Matter. It was her first solo show at the venue. Due to Covid-pandemic related public health restrictions, the show was closed to the public after one week.

From the Nicholas Metivier Gallery press release:

Medrie MacPhee’s innovative approach to space, colour and form is widely admired and respected in both Canada and abroad. Over the years, her work has evolved from architectural landscapes to abstraction, with the concepts of construction, momentum, collapse and renewal remaining central to her practice. A significant shift in MacPhee’s process occurred when she began adhering ordinary materials — clothing, zippers, buttons and fabric — to her canvases. The resulting chromatic patterns she creates using this framework are entirely abstract and yet reference their origins in the subtle presence of human-body derived shapes and contours.

Central to this exhibition is an 8’ by 10’ painting titled, Dark Matter (2020). The title came to MacPhee during the making of the work when she learned about the mysterious substance that is dark matter. Emitting no light, reflection or shadow, it is essentially the gravitational force keeping the solar system from flying apart. This theory resonated with MacPhee as she sees her own process of affixing clothing to canvas as the creation of an underlying matrix or scaffolding, out of which comes endless possibilities for her to explore. For this particular work, MacPhee limited the palette to black and white except for a small blue stripe in the top right quadrant. The simplified palette and bold composition recall the work of Paul-Émile Borduas and Robert Motherwell.

Other works in the exhibition, such as Zest (2020), have been inspired by moments in her recent memory like the specific quality of light she experienced at an artists’ residency, The Bogliasco Foundation, on the Ligurian coast near Genoa in 2019. Social Distance (2020), on the other hand, memorializes an extremely fruitful and concentrated period of working in her studio without the distraction of a social life. MacPhee notes that, “for those of us privileged enough to just stay home and concentrate on whatever vocations we had there was a strange silver lining to the isolation.”

 

Installation views of the exhibition courtesy of the Nicholas Metivier Gallery.

 

 

A Trio of Reviews in The New Yorker, The New York Times and Two Coats of Paint

18 February, 2021

A review of Medrie’s ongoing solo show at Tibor de Nagy from the chief critic at the New York Times, Roberta Smith appeared in the February 17, 2021 issue. Click here to read her concise and insightful text.

Another mention of the Tibor de Nagy exhibition was made in The New Yorker, “Goings on About Town” section. Writer Joanna Fateman treats us to poetic descriptions of the works: “The big compositions’ irregular shapes are plotted out by the seams of deconstructed garments, like parcels of land on a map. In Take Me to the River, a commanding work in bright navy blue, an overlay of white lines suggests fragmented circuitry; Favela is a handsome crowd of mustard, crimson, burgundy, and blue trapezoids. ”

Jonathan Stevenson has penned a thoughtful consideration of the figurative/abstract quandary in relation to the art of Medrie and David Humphrey in their current duo exhibition of works on paper at the New York Studio School gallery. It appeared on February 14th in NYC blogzine, Two Coats of Paint. Check it out here.

Solo show Words Fail Me opens in NYC

22 January, 2021

Medrie MacPhee will be exhibiting a series of new large paintings entitled Words Fail Me from January 30 to March 6, 2021 at Tibor de Nagy Gallery in New York City, 11 Rivington Street. A fully illustrated catalogue will accompany the exhibition with a conversation between MacPhee and the artist Amy Sillman and an essay by the artist Nicole Eisenman.

Opening reception January 30 – 12-6PM. Reservations are required, click here for details.

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In recent years MacPhee began a fake fashion line (RELAX) for artist friends out of cheap discount clothing. Both “high” and “low” gear of mixed gender were cut up and reassembled into outfits with zippers, buttons, notions, other fabrics, and decorated hoodies. A kind of wearable collage where all of the things that might be considered in a painting such as opacity and transparency, shape and line, color and texture were considered. It was this act that eventually translated into the paintings.

Gradually what had been a “fashion” sideline – within a “gift economy” became translated into her paintings. The process begins in 99 cent store bins and bargain basements. In order to realize the potential of what has become a visual “matrix” or scaffolding – the loose grid of low-rise clothing on canvas suggesting shapes, moves, and colors that are then whitewashed over— she begins to paint, to improvise, to erase, to add until the painting fulfills the promise of the original set of conditions. It’s finally out of that matrix that the painting gradually arrives.

Color gives shape to forms recognizably human in origin where to borrow from Nadia Hebson’s essay in Material Matters (Art and Theory Publishing, Stockholm) “the recondite relationship between clothing and agency can be atomized and gender becomes fluid.” There is no tale to tell but meaning and matter are inextricably bound together in ways that conjure up all that can’t be said.

Source: gallery press release

Exhibition of Drawings with David Humphrey opens January 25, New York School

22 January, 2021

Medrie MacPhee is kicking off the Biden era with a duo exhibition entitled Inner Workings: Works on Paper by David Humphrey and Medrie MacPhee at The New York Studio School Gallery.

“Opening” from 4-8pm Monday January 25. Medrie, David and curator Karen Wilkin will be in attendance.

The exhibition runs from January 25 – February 28, 2021. Covid restrictions are in place.

In the words of the exhibition curator Karen Wilkin:

“Both artists build potent metaphors for our difficult present. Humphrey’s compositions trigger recollections of horrifying current events, while MacPhee’s brooding abstractions echo the stresses of the past year. The intimacy of their works on paper intensifies the resonance of their inventions.”

– click here to read the full press release

– click here for a full list of the works exhibited.

– see the website for more details and to see all the photos from the exhibition.

NOTE: Works in this exhibition can be found in the Recent Works on Paper section of this site.
 

Photos of the exhibition

Nicholas Metivier Gallery Online Group Exhibition and Video

20 May, 2020

From April 28 to May 23, 2020 Medrie MacPhee is exhibiting two works in the virtual group exhibition On Paper | Part I. The exhibition brings together a unique selection of works on paper by various painters and sculptors who demonstrate drawing’s importance in providing creative freedom and inspiration in their respective practices. The other artists in the show include Shelley Adler, Stephen Appleby-Barr, Joachim Bandau, Bobbie Burgers, John Hartman, Landon Mackenzie, Linda Martinello, Charles Meanwell, Ben Reeves, John Scott, David Shapiro and Richard Tuttle. Click here to view all the works in the virtual exhibition.

Medrie MacPhee presents two works in the exhibition, Spiralling Up from 2018 and Inchoate Encounter from 2019, along with the following statement:

“Many of these current works on paper including ‘Inchoate Encounter’ {2019} are part of a series that I did while a fellow at the Bogliasco Foundation just south of Genoa, Italy last fall – before the unthinkable situation we are in now. The Ligurian coast is a visual mashup achieved through the architecture whose exteriors combine pastel colour, fresco, faux painting and especially trompe l’oeil. Fairly austere conjoined buildings become grand through their “fake” windows, bricks, arches, pilasters, balustrades around windows and doors. The limited palette – strictly prescribed by public ordinance – animates each building within a harmonic order in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. In retrospect the joy I felt in opening my studio windows each morning to the dazzling sea below seems manifest in this work.”

Click here to see Medrie’s “Artist Voice” blog post on the Nicholas Metivier Gallery website which includes the video below of a statement concerning the current Covid-18 crisis and five new paintings photographed in her studio.

American Academy of Arts and Letters Invitational and Art Purchase Award

10 May, 2020

Four paintings by Medrie MacPhee were selected for the American Academy of Arts and Letters Invitational exhibition. The twenty-eight exhibiting artists were chosen from over 150 nominees submitted by the members of the Academy, America’s most prestigious honorary society of architects, artists, composers and writers. The exhibition was intended to run from March 5-15 but was closed early in the interest of public health. Click here to see complete documentation of the exhibition.

The recipients of the Academy’s 2020 Award winners were selected from this exhibition. Medrie MacPhee was among the visual artists honored with an Art Purchase Program Award. This is her second time winning the award (2015).

Group exhibition at The Galleries at Moore with Ulrike Müller

14 November, 2019

Or Both is an experimental two-part exhibition that includes a solo presentation of work by Ulrike Müller alongside a group show of works by Martin Beck, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Jennie C. Jones, Eric N. Mack, Medrie MacPhee, Dona Nelson, and Deborah Remington. MacPhee is presenting two large paintings (Night’s Noontime (2019) and Whiteout (2018)). The show is up until December 7, at The Galleries at Moore, Moore College of Art and Design, 1916 Race Street, Philadelphia PA.

https://moore.edu/the-galleries-at-moore/exhibitions

Inducted as member of the National Academy of Design in New York

19 June, 2019

On Wednesday, October 30, 2019, the National Academy of Design inducted its newest class of National Academicians. Medrie MacPhee was among the visual artists inducted this year. (Photo of the National Academicians Class of 2019: Regina Bogat, Squeak Carnwaith, Sharon Davis, Steve DeBenedetto, Brenda Goodman, Michelle Grabner, Elana Herzog, Titus Kaphar, Annette Lemieux, Medrie MacPhee, Sangram Majumdar, Chris Martin, Carrie Moyer, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Richard Olcott, Jim Osman.)

National Academicians are professional artists and architects who are elected to membership by their peers annually. They represent some of the most distinguished practitioners in their respective fields. Becoming a National Academician is one of the highest honors in American art and architecture and cannot be applied for or solicited. In a tradition dating back to 1825, current members confidentially nominate and elect a new class each year, honoring the group’s remarkable contributions to the canon and story of American art. (source: NAD)

Named as a Fellow by the Bogliasco Foundation

18 April, 2019

“The Bogliasco Foundation supports the Arts and Humanities by providing residential Fellowships at its study center in Italy’s most vibrant, historic crossroads, where gifted artists and scholars of all cultures come together to connect, create and disseminate significant new work.

The Bogliasco Foundation awards one-month Fellowships to individuals of all ages and nationalities who have made significant contributions in the arts and humanities. Fellows live and work in bucolic surroundings on the coast near Genoa, where natural beauty combines with an intimate group setting to encourage inquiry and transformative exchange across all disciplines.”

Source: www.bfny.org

Recipient 2018-2019 Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant

5 September, 2018

Pollock-Krasner grants provide support to artists for the creation of new work. The Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Inc. was established in 1985 through the generosity of the late Lee Krasner, a leading abstract expressionist painter and widow of Jackson Pollock. Since its inception the Foundation has awarded over four thousand grants to artists in 77 countries. Medrie MacPhee was among the 2018-2019 recipients.