Cathleen Clarke Evokes the Sublime of Rural Nostalgia in 'Morning Star'
On view at Night Gallery starting January 18.
Night Gallery is set to unveil Morning Star, a solo exhibition by Brooklyn-based Cathleen Clarke. In this new suite of oil and acrylic paintings, Clarke draws from memories and family photographs of her upbringing in rural Illinois, giving way to a sublime meditation on domesticity and the environment.
The works of Morning Star trace the many faces of farm life, moving between sunny fields to moonlit gatherings of coyotes. Shadow and light refuse clear boundaries, along with Clarke’s forms: a teal horse and its rider smear into one another, bodies melt into the furniture they reside in and double-visioned faces.
Every time a memory loosens, so too does the composition. This process of wiping the canvas surface “evokes the presence and absence integral to any act of remembrance,” the gallery wrote. “Every time we think of the past, and what’s been lost, our memories shift.”
Like dusk or dawn, these scenes occupy an opulent in-between space. Rather than letting these memories fade away into obscurity, Clarke harnesses and enchants them with the unshakable pull of coming home.
Morning Star will be on view starting January 18, 2025.
Night Gallery
2276 E. 16th Street,
Los Angeles, California 90021
