Hudson Franklin is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of new paintings by Genevieve Walshe, on view from May 8 to June 14, 2008.

In Walshe’s abstract paintings, she uses hand-cut stencils to collage many layers of paint into dynamic webs of color. Her structured system creates unexpected patterns—and a dialectic between the random and the routine that extends into the various surfaces and the contrasts in the handling of paint.

In developing the series, Walshe discovered a kinship with the methodical web-building process of spiders. She found an allegory for the contemporary painter’s task in the true story of two spiders, Arabella and Anita, who were sent into space aboard Skylab in 1973:

The spiders proceeded to construct their web, while a camera took photographs and examined the spiders’ behavior in a zero gravity environment. Both spiders took a long time to adapt to their weightless existence. However, after a day, Arabella spun the first web in the experimental cage, although it was initially incomplete.

The web was completed the following day. Crewmembers fed and watered the spiders, giving them filet mignon. The first web was removed on 13 August, to allow the spider to construct a second web. At first, the spider failed to construct a new web, but, supplied with additional water, a second web was built, this time more elaborate than the first.

Finding the “zero gravity” of space analogous to the current tenor in contemporary painting, Walshe turned to modernist art and was inspired by the shapes “on stage” of Morris Louis and the “allover-ness” of Jackson Pollock and Piet Mondrian. Each mid-size canvas envelopes the viewer within a web of paint, and the paintings as an installation create a kinetic effect in the gallery.

Genevieve Walshe received her M.F.A. from Hunter College in 2004. This is her third solo show with Hudson Franklin.