Garvey Simon Art Access presents an exhibition of new drawings by Mary Reilly at 547 West 27th Street, Suite 207, New York, NY 10001.

The exhibition will run from Wednesday, June 20 to Saturday, July 28, 2012.

Concurrently will be a small exhibition of recent drawings by Daisy Craddock. Both of these female artists live and work in New York City, and their drawings are inspired by nature. The opening reception will be held on Thursday, June 21, from 6-8pm. Gallery hours are Tuesday – Saturday 10am-6pm.

This is Mary Reilly’s 5th solo show in New York and her first at Garvey Simon Art Access. The artist works solely in graphite on paper. Her drawings, composed of both powdered graphite and graphite lead, focus on the natural world within the limits of New York City’s five boroughs. From the graffiti-carved trees found in Alley Pond Park, Queens, or the mysteriously vacant pockets of Central Park’s North Woods, all the way to the far reaches of Staten Island’s beaches; the artist has become a hunter on a quest to find the unseen gems where a New Yorker can commune with nature in solitude. Her newest body of work brings this quiet refuge into the hot bustle of Chelsea in summer.

These quiet places within the seemingly endless cacophony of New York are an invitation to the viewer to slow down. The discipline of working only with graphite and the whites of the paper brings a Zen-like minimalism to the work despite their realist details, which enhances the contemplative effect for the viewer. Working both on large (50×40 inches) and smaller scale drawings, Reilly uses an intense layering technique to prepare her paper. Powdered graphite is repeatedly pushed into the paper (sometimes over a number of days) until the right tone is achieved. From there, both additive and reductive techniques (erasure) are used to masterfully render her subjects. The photographs she has taken on her journeys are her main source material, but she edits her subjects to reflect the exact memory, mood and light she associates with that specific place. Reilly varies her compositions from mysterious views through darkened woods, wide and abstracted views of sea and sky, to closer cropped views of nature or signs of human presence.

Mary Reilly was born in Yorktown, New York in 1963 and has been a resident of New York City for over two decades, where she continues to live and work. She studied in New York at the Art Students League, The School of Visual Arts, and The National Academy of Design. This is her first solo show with Garvey Simon Art Access.

A concurrent exhibition of recent works by Daisy Craddock will be on view in Gallery B.

Daisy Craddock was born in 1949 in Memphis, and received her MFA from the University of Georgia in 1973. She has been exhibiting her work nationally since the mid-1970s. Built up in rich layers of color, the artist has traditionally worked on a darkened paper or canvas since 1979, the year her mother died and her daughter was born. These new works have jettisoned the dark ground, the first time the artist has focused on a body of work on white ground since the late 70s.

Many of the works in this exhibition were created in the Berkshires while she was renting a 19th century farmhouse. Her studio was a renovated goat shed, and the surrounding fields, barn and lake were the inspiration for these exquisite drawings. There are also several seascapes in this show, another departure for the artist. These possess an abstract quality that bridges the gap between her landscape work and her abstracted diptychs for which she has become well known. The intimate size of these drawings brings the viewer close to experience their texture, hue, and line. Despite their small size, they possess an intensity and complexity that belie their scale and peaceful subjects. These plein air compositions (worked on site) serve as a journal of sorts. They act as an immediate recording of the artist’s experience of time and place, a mood she hopes to share with the viewer.

Daisy Craddock’s work has been exhibited widely throughout the United States and reviewed by many art magazines and newspapers, including Art in America, The New York Times, Art & Antiques, American Artist, Art News, and Arts Magazine. Public collections include the Anderson Museum, the Newark Museum, the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, the Milwaukee Museum of Art, the Roswell Museum, the Rubin Museum of Art, and the Weatherspoon Museum. She is the recipient of a Roswell Artist in Residency and a 2002 New York Foundation for the Arts, New York Arts Recovery Grant. The artist lives and works in New York City.

Gallery hours: Tuesday–Saturday, 10–6.

For more information, or high resolution visuals, please contact Elizabeth Garvey 917.796.2146 or [email protected]