Alumna Erika Mahr (BFA painting) has an upcoming exhibition in New York titled Screens and Shrouds. The exhibition will open on May 3 and run through June 21, 2014 at Launch F18.
Here is what Mahr has to say about her work:
"The charcoal drawings investigate blackness as the unknown, rather than as a void. Woven textiles are used as a device to both conceal and subtly reveal what lies beneath their permeable surface. They are screens to be peered through, alluding to the unseen that is contained beyond them. Close up, the image breaks down into abstracted pattern and repetition. The image becomes camouflaged, similar to the way each screen disguises what lies beneath.
The blackness functions similarly to that in baroque painting, where figures dissolve into a mysterious darkness. Caravaggio’s use of black defies the usual reference of a void. Rather than emptiness, he creates an overwhelming pregnant space. These drawings place focus on that enigmatic space.
A process of mediation is used to create these pieces, abstracting the image and passing it through a filter of reduction. The drawings begin as photographs that are digitally manipulated. I project and trace the image with charcoal pencil, lending a pixelated character to the mark. I am interested in the juxtaposition of the digital mediation with the organic nature of the image, material, and mark-making process.”
Launch F18
73 Broadway, 6th floor (between White St and Franklin St)
New York, NY 10013
