Two Coats of Paint review of “The Repair” at Tibor de Nagy

23 April, 2025

Adam Simon reviews Medrie MacPhee’s exhibition “The Repair” at Tibor de Nagy, New York (“Medrie MacPhee: Upcycling“, Two Coats of Paint Blog, March 28, 2025.

[excerpt] “For many viewers, it might be only that – an activated surface with ridges and flat areas. A lot of the secondhand clothing that provides this material is close enough to what most paintings are painted on, cotton duck, that it doesn’t feel disruptive. We take it in stride. Yet the ghost forms literally project in front of the depicted shapes by virtue of their relative thickness. This contradictory state of being both in front and behind results in the suspension of any fixed location. It can be unsettling, this lack of fixity, in a way that can tempt a viewer down the rabbit hole of metaphor. At a time when the federal government is trying to outlaw any divergence from strict male/female identity and, more broadly, to mandate a way of thinking that is as unsubtle as us vs them, this slippage between what is in front or behind feels significant.”