Foley Gallery is pleased to present The Color of Water, a four-person exhibition of artists who use watercolor as their primary medium.
A glass holds a colorless liquid, a combination of hydrogen and oxygen, two parts to one part. It's the source of life and also the source of sustaining life. For these four colorists of water, it is the medium that delivers the translucent hues of pigment. It's an unforgiving medium. The colors are not retractable, and the paper substrate to which they are washed upon is permanently altered, pruned, and rippled. It's a serious medium despite its reputation as the lighter and superficial cousin of acrylic and oil.
Graham Dean's deeply infused colors work their way, layer by layer, into the thickness of his paper, like a tattooer's ink penetrates the skin. The surface of the paper opens and receives its colors like many memories impregnating the subconscious. They are all there, tucked in between one another, blending into a complete but fragmented self. His figures' gestures are slow and deliberate, held fast in a state of mechanical suspension, waiting for their next command.
Dreams often form the outline foundation of Katie Pace Halleran's ink and watercolor compositions. The circle acts as a container that loosely holds the assortment of brightly vivid gestures, cascading and overlapping, one to the next. There is an order and flow here that battles the open-ended chaos of the possibilities she presents. Through abstraction and repurposed patterning, rhythms are formed, broken, and then re-engaged in different areas of the paper. These paintings are alive, changing, and challenging our imagination to see things deep within their applications.
Szilard Huszank's lush watercolors' woodsy details recall distant memories of hikes and walks through the trails of thickened forests. They are less detailed maps and more feeling memories that recall color and smell. Trees blend into meadows, combine into streams and then fragment again. The gestures are deliberate but brief in their application. The imagery suggests untouched, pristine landscapes far removed from the pace of an urban world.
Veronica Mortellaro discovered her love of acrylic ink and watercolor during her last semester in college. Her figures seem like a splice of both alien and human, male and female. Her cool paynes gray palette and stark white surroundings float her figures in space, detached from earthly reality. There is evidence of pain, birthing, and transforming in these single figure portraits. Each displays their emotions, vulnerable, open to many possible journeys.
The Color of Water is on view from April 7 – May 16, 2021. Foley Gallery is open Wednesday through Saturday, 11 – 5:30 pm and Sunday, 12 - 5. To request images, please contact the gallery at hello@foleygallery.com.