Vestiges

Katharine Harvey

Nicholas Metivier Gallery

January 12 – February 4, 2017

Opening Reception: Thursday, January 12, 6-8pm

Nicholas Metivier Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of new paintings by Katharine Harvey. The exhibition will open on January 12th and run until February 4th with an opening reception on Thursday, January 12th. This is Harvey’s fourth solo exhibition at the gallery.

Katharine Harvey’s latest body of work expands on her interest in memory, a subject that has been central to her practice for many years. Often with memory, a specific essence or quality of light is recalled more vividly than any other detail. This is precisely what Harvey captures in her paintings. Her signature technique of alternating brightly hued acrylic paint and gel medium evokes the sensation of this intangible human experience associated with memory.

Harvey’s paintings begin with photographs from her family archive. She paints the image in a gestural but representational style. She then applies upwards of twenty layers of gel and paint, obscuring and abstracting the image beneath while building a three-dimensional sense of depth and space. The resulting effect creates veils of colour, resembling light emanating through stained glass.

Harvey’s process involves a series of contrasts – covering and revealing, adding and subtracting, and constructing and destructing. These interplays create an important balance between representation and abstraction that demands the viewer’s participation. When standing in front of one of Harvey’s paintings, the moment that a figure, structure, or landscape begins to appear, it simultaneously dissolves back into a network of layers and colours.

Katharine Harvey’s work has been exhibited across Canada and in New York, Los Angeles, Monterey and Hamburg. She has completed several permanent and temporary public art commissions, including Chandelier (2012) and Gardiner Streams (2015). Her works are held in numerous collections across Canada, the United States and Germany.