KIM McCARTY
NEW WORK
September 10 – November 5, 2022
Danziger Gallery is pleased to present a show of new work by Los Angeles based painter Kim McCarty - the gallery’s first exhibition of her work. The exhibition opens on September 10 with a reception for the artist from 4 to 6pm and will be on view through November 5th at our gallery in Santa Monica’s Bergamot Art Center.
Known for her ethereal and diaphanous images, McCarty has for the last two decades used an exacting wet-on-wet watercolor technique, saturating the form on the paper to be painted with water before applying brush and pigment. The process is both fleeting and challenging as an image is either created or lost almost instantaneously and McCarty, a noted perfectionist, will often attempt a particular image multiple times before achieving one she feels is fully realized.
In this show of new work, created within the last year, McCarty mixes images of faces, figures, plants, and animals – all subjects that she has traditionally turned her attention to – but now updated and with new meaning in the post-pandemic world we live in.
While most of McCarty's imagery and compositions are derived from photographs she takes as studies, there are classical references to be found in the figures that frequently blur the distinction between gender. Mysterious, sensual, and fluid, McCarty’s people belong to their own tribe asking the viewer to meet them halfway in the exchange between observer and observed.
As McCarty continually explores the boundaries of her technique the figures and subjects veer between realism and abstraction as the paint pushes out onto the wet paper. Mixing color on color with control and accident, McCarty’s lightness of touch belies the intensity of work that goes into the making of each luminous image.
Kim McCarty graduated with her MFA from the University of California at Los Angeles, and her BFA from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. Her recent solo and group exhibitions include the Santa Monica Museum of Art (CA), and the Pasadena Museum of Art (CA). Her work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art (NY) and the UCLA Hammer Museum (CA) among others. Her work has been featured in major publications including The New York Times, The LA Times, Architectural Digest, and ArtForum.