Material Girls Katy Richards + Nikki Woods at HEDGE Gallery

 

This summer, the walls of HEDGE Gallery will be filled with luscious color and the intimate dialogues that are formed between paintings by Katy Richards and Nikki Woods, both graduates from The Cleveland Institute of Art. The show title, Material Girls, refers to the artists’ use of paint as a thick, gestural material and to the feminist attributes in their subject matter.

Katy Richards’s work is about the corporeal body, blurring distinctions between the interior and exterior to arrive at a form that is raw and exposed. 

Richards states, “I take pleasure in the sensual aspects of painting, searching through its materiality, slipping between paint and form to arrive at an image. I understand my process as a form of sublimation, and the act of painting allows me to indulge in exploring the body.” hedge-betweenmotherscushions_300dpi

Using paint to serve as both a means of depiction and expression, Nikki Woods creates highly decorative and decadent landscapes, objects, and centerpieces. A once-domestic object becomes infused with new meaning; paint and image become expressions of desire.

Woods describes the tension she creates between depiction and abstraction. “My work is about that interstitial space that lies between depiction and paint, the sensational qualities of a material that can bring expression to our most internal of places.”

Material Girls will be on view through the summer months at HEDGE Gallery. A variety of other artists, including Ken Love and Aleksandra Vandenhove, will be shown in the Foyer Gallery. 

HEDGE Gallery will also expand its artist representation through off-site curated shows at local businesses in the Gordon Square Arts District, including SPICE Kitchen + Bar, and The Battery Park Powerhouse.

HEDGE Gallery

78th Street Studios, Suite 200

1300 D, West 78th Street

Cleveland, Ohio 44102

hedgeartgallery.com

Gallery hours: Monday – Friday, 11am to 5 pm, or by appointment.
Material Girls: June 19 – August 21, 2015

Reception 5 – 9 pm Friday June 19