Untitled Art, Miami Beach 2023
Wednesday, December 6 through Saturday, December 9, 11am-7pm daily
Sunday, December 10, 11am-5pm
Massey Klein is pleased to announce our participation in Untitled Art, Miami Beach with new and recent works by Kate McQuillen and Aliza Morell. Untitled Art 2023 will take place during Miami Art Week from Wednesday December 6 through Sunday December 10, with a VIP and Press Preview on Tuesday December 5. For inquiries regarding the fair including works available, please email info@masseyklein.com.
Kate McQuillen and Aliza Morell have a deep engagement with art history and seek to cultivate painterly opportunities of emergence from the unconscious mind. Although the works have elements that can appear as digital art media, especially when viewed on a screen, the artists’ processes imply the steadfast use of analog materials and methods.
Kate McQuillen's work explores emotive states through color and the systematic application of paint, and visually seeks abstract imagery that communicates the same experience of that which is familiar but still unknown. The artist’s paintings are hyper-flat and have a deeply matte surface, allowing the viewer to experience the painting without any visual obstruction, producing the feeling that one might be able to enter the pictorial atmosphere. Her work emotes a deep sense that retrieval is imminent, and one’s mind feels at once an awareness of “knowing” and “not knowing.”
Trained as a masterprinter, McQuillen's use of blank silk screens to apply paint to panel produces visual moire patterns swirling through her compositions. Squeegee marks and smears, both considered mistakes in the printmaking cannon, are also tools in her painting vocabulary and are championed throughout her work. The acrylic paint is applied to panel with an absorbent ground, allowing the paint to absorb into it, leaving a smooth surface with minimal sheen. Each translucent layer of paint enables light to penetrate and bounce off the white ground of the panel, resulting in a subtle glowing effect as the viewer's eyes adjust to the painting.
Aliza Morell’s paintings have a sensory agenda. By focusing on the orchestration of harmonies and rhythms within each work, rather than relying on a straightforward narrative, the artist creates paintings that channel meaning through color, light, movement, and mood. The artist’s most recent series draws inspiration from the flowers of New York, specifically flowers found within the artist’s neighborhood of Ridgewood, Queens. Through the depiction, reworking, and layering of these poetic, graphic emblems, Morell aims to entice the viewer into an exploratory and imaginative sensorial experience.
Morell's method of drawing and transfer allows her to work and rework a drawing on paper until it is fully formed, which she then transfers to canvas using a rubbing transfer technique. From there she meticulously paints with oil the crisp lines of flora and hands that make up her compositions. No airbrushing or tape is found in the construction of her paintings. The chromatic vibrations and gradients of her work glow in the dense atmospheres of her canvases.
**
Kate McQuillen graduated with a BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art, where she won the Master Printmaker Award & 2D Fine Arts Award and was granted a travel scholarship to China. She was awarded her MFA from York University, where she attended as a full scholarship recipient and received the York University Stong Farmhouse Award. McQuillen has been the recipient of numerous grants such as the Illinois Arts Council Professional Development Grant and the Individual Arts Program Grant from the City of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events. She has completed artist residencies at MASS MoCA in North Adams, MA; The Center Program at the Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago, IL; Ragdale in Lake Forest, IL; Frans Masereel Center at the Flemish Center for Graphic Arts in Kasterlee, Belgium; the Center for Book & Paper Arts at Columbia College Chicago, IL; and the Open Studio Fine Art and Printmaking Center in Toronto, Canada; to name a few. McQuillen has lectured at various institutions including The Cooper Union, MassArt, Tyler School of Art and Architecture at Temple University, Columbia College Chicago, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and XPACE Cultural Center and has written for publications such as Art in Print, Graphic Impressions and POWER WASHER.
McQuillen has exhibited internationally including recent exhibitions in New York City, Brussels, Chicago, St. Louis, Cleveland, and Toronto. She has been included in numerous group exhibitions at institutions across the United States including IPCNY (NY), Riverside Arts Center (IL), Chicago Athletic Association (IL), The Poetry Foundation (IL), Utah Museum of Contemporary Art (UT), Columbia College Chicago (IL), North Illinois University Art Museum (IL), and the Hyde Park Art Center (IL). Additionally, McQuillen’s work has been presented at art fairs including Future Fair (NY), Expo Chicago, and Art Toronto. She has been interviewed for and has work featured in Brooklyn Rail, Art in Print, Hyperallergic, The Chicago Reader, Art Spiel, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Magazine, The Globe and Mail, Time Out Chicago, and Poetry Magazine (cover image), amongst many others.
Her work resides in the permanent collections of Temple University Libraries (Philadelphia, PA), the Saks Fifth Avenue Corporate Collection, TD Bank Group (Toronto), Anchor Graphics at Columbia College Chicago, Lake Forest College (Lake Forest, IL), Columbia College Center for Books & Paper Arts (Chicago), and the Open Studio Fine Art and Printmaking Center (Toronto), and in 2022 the artist’s work was installed in the lobby of the prestigious 225 W. Wacker Drive in Chicago, IL. McQuillen was a founding member of Super Dutchess, an artist-run project space on the Lower East Side in New York City. The artist currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
Aliza Morell holds an MFA from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University (2014) and a BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2005). Morell’s work has been shown at numerous venues in New York including Massey Klein, Thierry Goldberg Gallery, Knockdown Center, Elijah Wheat Showroom, Pioneer Works, and Small Editions, as well as Glass Rice (San Francisco, CA), Tinney Contemporary (Nashville, TN), Tempus Projects, (Tampa, FL), and Camayhus Gallery (Atlanta, GA), among many others. Additionally, work by the artist has been presented at SPRING/BREAK Art Show in New York and PULSE Miami Beach.
Morell’s work has been featured in New American Paintings (2022, 2017, 2014), Hyperallergic, Create Magazine, and Two Coats of Paint. The artist has completed a number of artist residencies, including Vermont Studio Center (Johnson, VT), ACRE (Steuben, WI), Oxbow (Sautatuc, MI), and Harold Arts (Chesterhill, OH). Morell currently lives and works in Ridgewood, Queens.
