 The New Autobahn, 2004 oil and graphite on canvas, 84 x 120 inches Kelly McLane Chemical Topical New paintings by Kelly McLane will mark her solo debut in New York and with CRG. The images throughout McLane's work reference in part her California surroundings and her travels which serve as a point of reference and as a landscape for the recontextualized. Here, divergent elements are found protruding from the mundane as if spectacular anomalies generated by the subconscious, disparate against their surroundings, though subtly integrated. Such is the case with the massive stone ruins of the Colossus of Rhodes that has become a thematic contribution to this body of work. The statue of the sun god Helios was erected by the people of Rhodes in 305 B.C. in celebration of a peace and alliance among rival city states and economic prosperity. It was said to have spanned the harbor entrance with its feet planted on either side and its arm raised to the sky holding a torch. The statue was later destroyed by an earthquake and its repair forbidden by an oracle. One is reminded of such scenes as the blackened post-Homo-sapien Statue of Liberty from the "Planet of the Apes". The apocalyptic is clearly present here, but does not seem definite or completely terminal by any means. Instead, it points toward a notion of an ongoing recycling of history and the speculation of its origin or destination. The enormous fractured body parts are found alongside the remains of modern structures like a collapsed highway and a factory building that recall images of war-torn or earthquake-stricken cities, except that here the man-made structures are now found occupied by animals as if the ruins had been exposed by receding tide waters over time to give way to a new meta-natural habitat. Though there seems an implicit and pointed meaning throughout the work, it remains unconnected enough to allow for multiple routes of egress or a variable teleological point of view in terms of humanity and nature. The paintings retain the directness and obsessive quality of McLane's drawings, as the more detailed portions have the same level of complexity but on a larger scale. A multi-layered process of image making is apparent in what appears an endless reworking of minutiae through addition and negation. Exhibition: October 28 - December 4, 2004 Gallery hours: June: Tue-Sat 10am - 6 pm July: Mon-Fri 10am - 6 pm CRG Gallery 535 West 22nd Street USA-New York, NY 10011 Telephone +1 212 229-2766 Fax +1 212 229-2788 Email mail@crggallery.com www.crggallery.com |
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