EXHIBITION IMAGES | PRESS RELEASE
LOUISA CHASE & SALLY EGBERT
November 12, 2011 – January, 7, 2012
Opening reception for the artists: Saturday, November 12, 6-9pm Gallery hours: Saturday and Sunday, 12 – 6pm and by appointment
Halsey Mckay Gallery is pleased to present an installation of new paintings and works on paper by East Hampton based artists Louisa Chase and Sally Egbert. The exhibition displays lyrical, bold and intuitive works that operate more as natural and corporeal extrapolations rather than traditional abstract expressions.
Louisa Chase’s highly saturated compositions often combine static geometric figures with gestural marks culled from the same starting point. Graphic forms loosely representative of a clown, Budda, or falling leaves and snowflakes are punctuated with layers of quick strikes in oil. The directness of her canvas and paper works model a unique and pliable vocabulary from an unmuddled voice.
Sally Egbert culls inspiration from the landscape, being highly influenced by the local light and linear structures she discovers in bare tree limbs. Her saturated abstract paintings full of floating forms dance free of any fixed boundary. In Egbert’s works on paper and canvas we also find transient, unpredictable movement and visages of mysteriously familiar shapes. While gentler in tone and palette than Chase, Egbert’s works also operate between abstract gesture and loose representation of visual observation.
Louisa Chase lives and works between East Hampton and New York City. Ms. Chase’s works have been featured in gallery and museum shows in Cologne, Nurnberg, Luzem, Switzerland, Toronto, and Tokyo, as well as at various galleries and museums throughout the US. She has been featured at the American Pavillion at the Venice Biennale and has been awarded two grants by the National Endowment for the Arts. Among others, Chase’s works are in the permanent collections of The Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Brooklyn Museum of Arts, The Corcoran Gallery and The Library of Congress. This will be the first time that Ms. Chase has exhibited new work in East Hampton.
Sally Egbert lives and works in East Hampton, NY. She has been awarded grants and fellowships from the Pollock Krasner Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Gottlieb Foundation, The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts. Ms. Egbert has been featured in Vanity Fair, Art in America and the New York Times as well numerous other publications. Her work is held in the collections of Price Waterhouse Cooper, Progressive, Hewitt and the Tucson Museum of Art. On the East End Ms. Egbert has exhibited at the The Parrish Art Museum, The Islip Art Museum, The Fireplace Project, Guild Hall, Spanierman Gallery and Salomon Contemporary. She has also exhibited extensively in New York and across the United States.