McKenzie Fine Art is pleased to announce an exhibition of new work by Maureen McQuillan. This is the New York-based artist’s third solo show at the gallery. A catalogue with an essay by Sue Spaid accompanies the exhibition.

For well over a decade, Maureen McQuillan has been investigating the infinite possibilities of line by exploiting the inherent nature of simple materials. The centerpiece of this exhibition is a series of photograms created by making marker drawings on multiple layers of transparent material, then exposing the photo paper beneath these stacks of abstract, linear imagery. Using low-tech means-a light bulb, photo paper and chemicals, with no additional materials or mechanical or digital manipulation-the artist achieves mysterious and beautiful effects that reference patterns found in nature as well as those revealed by high-tech means, such as micro- or telescopic imagery.

McQuillan has said the following about these works: “As an artist I never thought I’d use photography in my work; however, my interest in drawing has led me here. I began making cameraless photographs four years ago, but instead of recording the outline of an object, I am capturing the shadows of many-layered drawing: the lines themselves, as they fall for an instant on the paper. I start by drawing on layers of clear material until I have a stack of interlocking images. It is a slow, repetitive, meditative way of working. Over time, the lines I have so painstakingly made disappear in the cloudiness of the stacked material and only reappear during the process of making the photogram. I can recombine the drawings in interesting ways to take the work in new and often surprising directions. I experiment within the narrow confines of my simple process to create strange combinations of light and focus. I don’t believe it’s necessary to sacrifice working by hand to create work that reflects an interest in the way different technologies have changed the way we see the world. Ideally, while abstract, my work references the cosmic, the mundane, the optical, the actual and the virtual all at the same time.”

Also in the exhibition are works that extend the same principles into different media. On view will be a series of layered drawings on stacks of transparencies, illuminated by a light box; and multi-layered geometric drawings made from marker on transparent Japanese book-mending tissue saturated with glue.