Artist's Reception - Stephanie McMahon: BRUSH

Lake George Arts Project

Stephanie McMahon’s paintings extract and distill her observations and perceptions of a particular environment while presenting the possibilities of abstraction. Weaving in and out of referential forms, colors and elemental shapes, she allows for both intuitive and calculated responses. The paintings are made with thin, translucent layers of oil paint on a smooth oil ground surface. Luminous, gestural brushstrokes impart physicality yet glide weightlessly over smooth surfaces as figure-ground relationships oscillate and conflate. Geometric structures and sharp edges provide a counterpoint to the immediacy and speed of the gesture. The slow, measured adjustment of a seemingly quick gestural brushstroke acts to reassign the historical meaning of this type of mark, simultaneously referring to the intuitive action of the body while invoking a stillness and precision in the intertwining of distinct marks. This process creates an active space for exploration that connects the present activity of painting to a previous experience. McMahon works in a constant negotiation with the elements as they shift in relation to one another, as she imagines, invents, and explores fluid spaces, suggestive forms, color relationships, and gesture. Over the years, she has moved between shaped panels, dimensional works on paper, and rectilinear formats. These variables allow her to address painting as image, object and action, reinforcing or expanding the limits of the picture plane.