Charlotte Russell Contemporary is pleased to announce Collecting Moments, a three-person exhibition featuring work by Maggie Perrin-Key, Abie Harris, and Jennifer Small. Featured artists collect memories and moments from everyday life, architecture, and their surroundings as inspiration for their colorful works on view. The exhibition will be on view at Charlotte Russell Contemporary November 12 through December 16, 2021 with an opening reception on Friday, November 12, 5:30 to 7:30 PM.
For Raleigh, NC-based artist Abie Harris, visualizing architectural concepts was the essence of his work as the University Architect at NC State University. Creating forms and exploring their relationships with color were the foundations of this work and now are the foundations of Harris' paintings and drawings. Visual structure presents an ongoing exploration of forms, color, and their interrelationships.
Maggie Perrin-Key (Roanoke, VA) uses color palettes connected to specific memories and familiar shapes to capture and abstract what memories look like. Perrin-Key activates the space with movement while maintaining flat blocks of color. She begins a painting by first recording the memory in colored pencil on paper less than eight inches on either side. This step before blowing the composition up into larger than life size allows for a moment of translation; from brain and body, to small paper recording, and finally to fully rendered encapsulating painting. She takes memories that exist in the ether and brings them into fully bodied life.
Philadelphia, PA-based artist Jen Small's works are abstract in appearance but actually record a journey of a day in the life —a practice that starts with documentation through the lens of a camera. Her eyes act as a viewfinder narrowing down the panoramic into single frames. Compiled snapshots represent blocks of time during her process of seeing and recording aesthetic significance in ordinary routine. She sees curious formal elements in common things waiting to be manipulated and transformed into abstract compositions. She collages together the single framed images, simplifies and renders them in paint to create the lines, shapes, and hues that fill the canvas. Abstracted layers build shallow spaces that depict her translation of the everyday.
