EXHIBITIONS
MAGALIE GUÉRIN
B. 1973
Magalie Guérin’s painting practice has developed through sustained experimentation with the medium’s formal and ontological possibilities. Her interest lies beyond defined systems of representation or abstraction, instead seeking to emphasize specific pictorial relationships, including those of figure/ground, pattern/color, and space/edge. Embossed checkered squares and crinkled striations overlap and adjoin with limb-like contours and gradated forms; slices of vivid orange and deep green contrast with muted earth tones and soft pastels. What distinguishes a brushstroke, a slice of solid paint, a ridge of medium from each other calls for an openness to shifting visual interpretations. This sense of cultivated interiority within each work is mirrored by the external, subjective experience of encountering it. Free from any mimetic boundaries, Guérin’s paintings invite viewers to construct their own narrative of signification, drawing new meanings from unexpected interactions of color, texture, line, and form.
Magalie Guérin (b. Montréal, 1973) is based in Marfa, TX, and holds an MFA in Painting and Drawing from the School of the Art Institute in Chicago (2011). Recent solo shows include exhibitions at Corbett vs Dempsey, Chicago, IL (2022); Amanda Wilkinson Gallery, London (2020); Chapter NY, New York (2019); Galerie Nicolas Robert, Montréal; and James Harris, Seattle, WA (2018). Her work is included in the public collections of the The Art Museum of West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV; Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, CA; the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, Québec City, Canada; Collection Hydro-Québec, Montréal, Canada; DePaul Art Museum, Chicago, IL; and the Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY. She is the author of NOTES ON, a compilation of studio writings published by The Green Lantern Press in 2016 (second edition 2019). Guérin was awarded the Pace Award for amid-career painter at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, RI, (2019) and a Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant and Chinati Foundation residency (2018).