Sarah Canright, untitled, 2018. Watercolor on Twinrocker paper, 14 ½ x 14 ½ in. Image courtesy of the artist.
Associate Professor of Practice in Studio Art Sarah Canright presents new work in a collaboration with independent arts writer and curator Sue Graze in testsite's latest exhibition, New Moves. The project opened on Sunday, November 4 with a public reception and a conversation between the Canright and Graze. The exhibition will be on view from Nov. 4 - Dec. 16, 2018.
From the press release:
Sarah Canright and Sue Graze have much in common. Gender. Art world experiences. And now with substantial careers behind them their differences are equally striking. Sarah makes objects. She uses her craft to transform modest materials into painted surfaces imbued with taut visual energy and psychological intensity. Sue organizes, interprets, and makes meaning of what artists like Sarah create. And, after over 40 years as a curator and arts administrator, she is still in the throes of her first serious love - painting. The inexplicable metamorphosis of nothing into something, of turning a physically flat surface into a profoundly personal experience, Sarah Canright’s art assuredly and forcefully hits that sweet spot.
For this testsite project, Canright and Graze bring together a selection of Canright's recent work, tactile and otherworldly paintings in addition to photographs. "With its two black silhouettes onto a red circle, the impressive oil on canvas, Singing Competition (2016) doesn’t so much depict, as emblazon," writes Erin Keever in a review for Sightlines.
"This pair of canines are no longer greyhound dogs, but otherworldly sentinels standing still amidst an artificial blowing breeze and pool of ripples. Formal choices — such as the dramatic used of non-relational color and the logo look of the composition — force us to focus on the manipulation inherent in painting and the fiction of image making."
In January, testsite will welcome Studio Art Assistant Professor of Practice R. Eric McMaster to the gallery for a new sound installation.