Wed 3/15 @ 5PM
Fri 3/17 @ 5-8PM
Local artist Katy Richards has been working on a new series of oil paintings she’s calling Pocket Full of Posies. The color-saturated paintings feature profusions of floral patterns and human figures in layered compositions “almost as if old wallpaper was being removed from the surface of her canvases.”
The paintings are about desire, beauty, concealment, death and temporality, say the artist.
“I use repeating imagery like the skull and flower as a reminder of the inevitability of death, and the fragility of life,” says Richards. “The flower’s bloom, especially a peony which shows up in multiple works, is so brief. Flowers wither and die, a reminder of our own fate.” In fact the show’s title comes from the nursery rhyme “Ring Around the Rosie,” which allegedly came from the bubonic plague. In any case, flowers were often used to mask the smell of death.
The show debut at HEDGE Gallery in 7th Street Studios with a free public preview Wednesday March 15; its official opens during Third Friday, March 17. The show will be on view through Friday May 5.
hedgeartgallery.com/exhibitions