April 2008, Philadelphia, PA – Locks Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new paintings by British artist Kate Bright. Kate Bright: Between the Woods will be on view May 2 through 30, 2008. There will be an artist reception Friday, May 2nd from 5:30-7:30pm.
The works presented in this exhibition, the second for Bright at Locks Gallery, will feature eight new paintings from 2007-08. As in her previous work, Bright looks to the natural landscape and in these works, depicts snow-laden trees. Rather than straight-forward representational landscape painting, Bright, an urbanite, paints from memory and photographic images of pastoral locations she has lived, visited, and accumulated. She exerts control over her trees and imbues the works with her own sense of idealized beauty - applying glitter to the canvas in order to transform simple subject matter.
In her catalog essay, Judith Stein observes that the application of glitter comes with its own implications: “The quest for sublimity, that mingling of astonishment and awe before the majesty of nature, is infrequently expressed as a goal of art in this day and age, and even rarer to find linked to a de-based material. But we must take Bright at her word: it is sincerity that fuels her practice.” She goes on to praise Bright for her paintings of “illusory brilliance.”
An illustrated catalog is available with an essay by critic and independent curator, Judith Stein.
Kate Bright has had solo exhibitions at the Centro Internacional de Arte de Salamanca, Spain; The New Art Gallery Walsall, UK; Vitamin Contemporary Art, Turin, Italy; and the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, UK. Bright is a graduate of Goldsmiths College, London and is currently a lecturer at the Slade School of Fine Art, London.
