Projects
Xanda McCagg Project #3
Joan Snitzer
PAINTING
An exhibition of works by artist Joan Snitzer highlighting a selection of paintings from her compositions series.
Opening Reception
Thursday, April 28th, 6pm – 8pm
May 14th, 2pm – 6pm, Tuesday – Saturdays
By appointment (917) 689-7521
Location
Xanda McCagg Projects
526 West 26th Street Studio 509 Chelsea, NYC
(between 10th and 11th Avenue)
Closing Reception
May 14th, 3pm – 6pm
"My project “Compositions” revolves around a central paradox: the improbable freedom of expression in purely abstract forms and disillusion in representing the simplest possibilities of reality through photographic representation. In order to understand this paradox, I explore in painting the poetics of geometry, intimacy, and the artist's touch. I propose a balance or merger of forms, patterns, and representations that I face every day. This is the way the foundations of abstraction and the production of contemporary images structure the way I experience the world." – Joan Snitzer
ON - VERGE: POST-INTERNET WINDOWS by Mira Dayal
Xanda McCagg Project #2
"Collage Cities" by Toronto-based
artist Catherine Beaudette.
The exhibition will highlight 6 new paintings and a selection of collage works on paper.
Date
October 16th – October 25th,12pm – 6pm
By appointment (917) 689-7521
Location
Xanda McCagg Projects
526 West 26th Street Studio 509 Chelsea, NYC
(between 10th and 11th Avenue)
"Collage Cities map the multiple and mobile territories of contemporary socio-political diversity in which we live. They are a mash-up of overlapping architectural structures and spaces coexisting in an interconnected system of global urbanism. " Catherine Beaudette
Baudette’s paintings often evolve from collage images she has taken and put together then reinterpreted again through the act of painting. Engaged in material and process her work pulls you into compositions with the narrative of dynamic space on the cusp of realism, architectural elements and abstraction, space, and movement that make one think of a great film that brings you to ponder questions and meditate in the answers. Adjacent to her studio practice she creates installations of found objects that are changed from time to time to make new composition: evolution of an idea.
"My travels are documented through the images I collect and combine in my paintings. Each place I visit is merged into the larger picture, intensifying its complexity. The college cities I develop mirror a fractured contemporary experience, one that is not static or stable, and where boundaries between past/present/future, between localities, genders, or class interests become porous and blurred. These are global cities interlinked in survival." – Catherine Beaudette
"COLLAGE CITY 3" Oil on canvas 32inx32in
Xanda McCagg Project
Della Dress
Xanda McCagg projects inaugural exhibition FIGURE: The figure drawings of Della Drees.
Opening Reception
Thursday, July 17th, 6pm – 8pm
Thursday, July 17th – Sunday, July 21st, 2014
Location
Xanda McCagg Projects
526 West 26th Street Studio 509 Chelsea, NYC
(between 10th and 11th Avenue)
Drawing is a fundamental form of creative expression. Whether a child's emotive mark-making, the poet molding lines into words, notes of a great symphony, or the skilled artists studied in technique and history, drawing in all its forms is an innate human expression. I begin the projects with a look at my root, classic figure drawing where I began my mature focus in the arts.
You can’t help but feel Della’s physiological depth and brilliance when spending time with her work. Here the figure perceived reaches out to you with thoughts and questions.
Artist Statement ~ Della Drees
"I direct my awareness towards one vital and primary source; the human body. I am constantly and irresistibly drawn to the figure; either from masterworks or purposeful representational observation of the live body. Drawing and re-drawing the human form – drawing what we are – is a primary act core to all art that seeks a connection to the natural principles. My instinct is to explore, question, and absorb, to perceive what nature is showing us, and to translate this using intellect and emotion. Informed by my Psychology background, I feel a mark put to paper is a direct way for our cognition to connect to the outside. When these actions resonate, they inform with vitality, and a more truthful and emotive work emerges to illustrate the spirit and dignity of humanity. This record is a manifestation of an empathetic relationship; an aesthetic-emotive exchange between the instigator and the inspirer. "
Following her Ph.D. in Psychology, Della traveled widely seeking inspiration in the ethos of figurative observational drawing at places such as the Princes Drawing School in London and Studio Escalier in Paris. Born and raised in England, Della currently works between Paris, London and the USA. She draws at the historic Grande Chaumière atelier in Paris, at the Louvre in Paris, museums in Europe and the USA, and at her studio in Connecticut.
"He who realizes the truth of the body can then come to realize the truth of the universe."
A Ratnas or 5th century Buddist Siddhas teaching.
Della Drees: an artist interested in humans.
"I direct my awareness towards one vital and primary source; the human body. I am constantly and irresistibly drawn to the figure; either from masterworks or purposeful representational observation of the live body."
Drawing and re-drawing the human form – drawing what we are – is a primary act core to all art that seeks a connection to the natural principles. My instinct is to explore, question, and absorb, to perceive what nature is showing us, and to translate this using intellect and emotion. Informed by my Psychology background, I feel a mark put to paper is a direct way for our cognition to connect to the outside. When these actions resonate, they inform with vitality, and a more truthful and emotive work emerges to illustrate the spirit and dignity of humanity. This record is a manifestation of an empathetic relationship; an aesthetic-emotive exchange between the instigator and the inspirer."