Surprisingly, though, considering they might have been intimidated by their new digs, all of the longstanding gallery artists who've had one-person shows at Mayer since 2011 have risen to the challenge, none more so than Tim McFarlane. In his first solo show in the new space, he has managed what many artists before him have not been able to do - find the right balance and scale of works for the hallway and then make the most of that huge back wall.
With "Presence," McFarlane has also created one of his most cohesive bodies of work to date; the small paintings displayed in the front room and along the hallway announce that right away. In each, energetically painted gestural lines form netlike compositions that coalesce with varying background colors, conjuring different places and experiences, musical rhythms, and McFarlane's own riff on the physical act of painting.
So many paintings of the same size need not have been hung so close together - a strategy that's been employed in other shows here to take advantage of the long wall but that tends to undermine the individuality of works - but the paintings across from them are varied in scale and color and more anomalous in this show, such as his bucolic, lovely Vortex, which combines a gestural composition with an inner open space that looks like a clearing in a forest.
McFarlane's enormous site-specific painting, We Dance to Pray, on the back wall is the most exciting, visceral use of this wall to date, allowing viewers the sensation of walking into the painting. At the same time, it is a logical progression in his show (as was Eileen Neff's photographic work on this wall in her show at this time last year), not straining to be a separate "project."
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Also, during the opening, Bridgette Mayer presented a check for
$17,000.00 to members of non-profit dance company
Ballet X, based in Philadelphia. The funds are the result of money raised during the
2013 Benefit Exhibition, held earlier this summer at the gallery. The benefit continues online until
November 1st at
phillyartexperience.com/art, where two of my paintings on panel can be purchased (10 x 10 inches, acrylic on panel, both completed in spring 2013.
Last, but not least, I will be in attendance at the gallery this Saturday, September 14th, from 11am-2pm, so if you are in the area, stop by to see the show and chat a bit!
