Forty years ago, it was contrary to the “orders” which governed our lives to cultivate useless flowers, but, fortunately for those of us who loved them, there are many plants which are beautiful as well as useful. We always had extensive poppy beds and early in the morning, before the sun had risen, the white-capped sisters could be seen stopping among the scarlet blossoms to slit those pods from which the petals had just fallen… The rose bushes were planted along the sides of the road… but it was strongly impressed upon us that a rose was useful, not ornamental – Sister Marcia Bullard, 1906 Fisher Parrish Gallery is pleased to present Useless Flowers, a two-person exhibition of paintings and sculptural works by New York artists Caitlin MacBride and Sam Stewart.
The form of a bonnet is a point of common connection for MacBride’s oil paintings and Stewart’s sculptural lamps. In Useless Flowers, each artist focused on bonnets worn by the Shakers, a radical Christian sect that embraced craft, equality, frenetic worship, and celibacy. The bonnet itself, popular in the 19th century to denote modesty, often physically functioned as blinders for the wearer. Popular culture of the time often subverted the bonnet’s original use, redesigning them as flamboyant frivolous attention grabbers. The Shakers however, in keeping with everything they made, had strict guidelines for bonnet designs. When wearing a bonnet, the gaze is obscured for the wearer and those who wish to see them. The separation of public and private is controlled by the bonnet’s wearer, as is the choice to delineate oneself physically and spiritually from others.
MacBride’s oil paintings explore soft tensions in sewn fabrics and twisted ropes. The intricacies of Shaker bonnets and old colonial beds mix with painterly expanses of color. Exploring the space where form abandons function, MacBride’s work binds the intimate to the structural. Using the grid as a bridge between the art historical and the everyday, the work engages pleats, gathers, and woven structures to overlay high and low. Texture and construction are analyzed in the painting process for a closer look at analog labor and handmade object-hood. Through the depiction of soft materials, the tension of passionate restraint is explored.
Sam Stewart’s lamp pieces emit a warm light, evoking the bonnet wearer’s interior life and simultaneous public presentation. Using meticulous craftsmanship, Stewart’s lamps blur the lines between practicality and absurdity. Although Stewart’s source material tends to be specific and carefully researched, the objects themselves reflect a liminal space that allows the viewer to forego reality. The fabric lampshade retains a permeability that elicits a visceral bodily relationship to this household object. Spaced throughout the gallery at a familiar height, Stewart’s lamps stand among us, becoming part of our own community.
Fisher Parrish Gallery: Useless Flowers Caitlin MacBride and Sam Stewart
HESSEFLATOWis pleased to present Table Manner, showcasing the collaged paper works of Anthony Iacono, the multi-material sculpture and wall works of Sacha Ingber and oil paintings by Caitlin MacBride. While the materials and subject matters are diverse, each artist asserts a meticulous control over the materials used, while allowing the content of the work to behave as the expressive quality of the work. MacBride’s figure-absent settings, Ingber’s sensual-teasing surfaces and Iacono’s tension-filled collages all seem to reveal an anonymous partner. A focus on imagery of handheld objects, tools or furniture spans all three artists work. Using motifs from interiors or domestic settings, Iacono, Ingber, and MacBride all create backdrops that act as cues for the setting of a stage. Objects appear as animated as the social cues and characters that create a moment.
Freehand Fellowship 2019 The Freehand Fellowship includes a grant, programming budget, housing in the hotel, three months of exclusive access to the hotel’s rooftop artist studio, and opportunities to curate public programs and exhibitions in the hotel. Stay tuned for info on Caitlin MacBride's events and programming!
SQUARES BY ARTISTS: Caitlin MacBride for PeaceMeal Caitlin MacBride's paintings as wearable scarves for all sorts of seasons. Scarves in all sizes in silk cashmere, twill, and georgette. 25% of proceeds will got to the YASPAT Orphanage in Bekasi, Indonesia. See the look book and order a scarf here : https://peace-meal-shop.com/#caitlin
BEHOLDER'S SHARE - GROUP SHOW 315 GALLERY, BROOKLYN NY
NO REGRETS - GROUP SHOW THE LEROY NEIMAN GALLERY, New York, NY
GOOD WEATHER GALLERY presents "LANDS' END", MIAMI Miami, FL December 2016 Good Weather has positioned pieces of a boat dock on the shore as platforms and partitions with an exhibition that considers the gallery’s relationship with this geological edge and is caught up in the physiological effects from the current emotional deluge to the political crisis that we find ourselves in.