Katy Moran, Rock Face with a Face, 2013, collage and acrylic on canvas, 38 x 46 cm (15 x 18 in), Collection of Carole Server and Oliver Frankel. Photography by Stephen White.
Katy Moran
15 January – 8 March 2015
Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art is delighted to present a solo exhibition of paintings by the London-based painter Katy Moran.
Although Katy Moran's gestural and highly evocative paintings may appear to be abstract, the artist herself is invariably concerned with the figurative. For her, ideas arise out of the process of painting. She works with the paint, consciously and subconsciously preserving and rejecting marks until she sees they are alive with the energy and power that she considers right. To lose attachment to any figurative referent that may have appeared too soon in the process, she will often turn a canvas and work on it from different perspectives, painting until every part of it works. In this way, she achieves an easy fluidity across the surface that looks as if it were always meant to be just so. Moran remains constantly alert to the unconscious opportunities of chance and time, which she tempers with conscious control, skill and knowledge to make paintings that are intensely and richly powerful.
This 'Katy Moran' exhibition presents a survey of her work from the ten years of her practice. The earlier paintings tend to be more loosely gestural with dynamic brushstrokes alive with painted energy and subtly rich colour. Later works, though more structured and detailed, often with added elements of collage, nonetheless abound with the 'energy' she demands of all her marks. Even within the modest scale of Moran's paintings she achieves a remarkable concentration of energy that never fails to thrill viewers. Then there is the pleasure of seeking out the figurative imagery so tantalizingly hinted at in their intriguing titles.
Curated by Ziba Ardalan, Founder/Director of Parasol unit, this exhibition is Katy Moran's first major solo presentation in a public London institution. It is accompanied by a full colour publication, printed in a limited edition of 500 copies, a limited edition print, along with an educational events programme of related talks, Family and Children workshops, a poetry workshop and Youth projects.
Born 1975 in Manchester, UK, Katy Moran now lives and works in London. In 1998, she earned her BA Honours in Graphic Art and Design at Leeds Metropolitan University, and in 2005 achieved an MA in Fine Art Painting at the Royal College of Art, London.
Katy Moran's solo exhibitions include: Stuart Shave/Modern Art, London; Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin (2013); Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York (2011); Wexner Center for the Arts, Ohio (2010); Tate St Ives, Stuart Shave/Modern Art, London, Galleria Il Capricorno, Venice (2009); Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, Middlesbrough, Anthony Meier Fine Arts, San Francisco, Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York (2008); Stuart Shave/Modern Art, London, and Grusenmeyer Art Gallery, Deurie, France (2006).
She has had work shown in various international group shows, including: 'Painter Painter', Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, USA (2013); 'Contemporary Painting, 1960 to the Present: Selections from the SFMOMA Collection', SFMOMA, San Francisco, CA, USA (2012); and 'Art Now: Strange Solution', Tate Britain, London (2008).
Moran has works in public collections at the Arts Council Collection, London; Government Art Collection, London; Tate, London; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, and SFMOMA, San Francisco.
Katy Moran, installation view at Parasol unit, London. Photography by Stephen White.
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