Artist: Kristine Moran
Exhibition title: Utopias Come In Waves
Venue: Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto, Canada
Date: March 20 – May 16, 2020
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto
“These were the strokes we praised, weren’t they,/ the butterfly and the crawl, the lullabies/ we crooned on the first warm day of summer/ in honor of the non-swimmers Crane and Berryman,/ in honor of Orpheus, whose butchered head/ is forever singing above the choppy waves.”
-Edward Hirsch, “The Swimmers”
Daniel Faria Gallery is pleased to present Utopias Come In Waves, Kristine Moran’s fifth solo exhibition with the gallery.
Let your mind wander for a moment. While your arms slice into the water and your feet are in motion, wander. For a moment you forget you’re still in the water. Don’t forget. Don’t shiver. Swim faster. Focus on the shore. Where is the shore? There is no bottom to touch down upon. No resting place. One hundred feet below is the resting place. Don’t rest. Dark muddy water. Now I’m afraid of you. Where does my hand go below me with every stroke? Disappearing below me with every stroke. Short breath, stroke, stroke, stroke.
Four years ago, Moran took up swimming as a daily ritual and it soon became subject matter in her work as well. The “Mad Cap Swimmers” paintings contend with the sensations, rhythms and mental states experienced during long intervals spent swimming across large bodies of water. On the water, where stillness can lead to death, swimming becomes a metaphor for the human will to push through adversity – the desire to survive.
The gesture of the swimmers’ black caps bridge one work to the next in a lateral rhythm, a nod to Frank Stella’s Protractor series from the late ‘60s, where the goal is not to make one dramatic or signature shape, but rather a series of simple, seemingly interchangeable units that are part of an ongoing process of building. However, while Stella has been known to say of his work, “what you see is what you see,” Moran’s work is imbued with narration, figuration and subjectivity.
The water begins to rise and the swimmers are ready. They have been training for the challenge ahead. Their goal is an ambiguous landscape that is in view but just out of reach. But like most utopias – and like most desires – that view is unattainable by its very nature.
In a new series of landscapes, Moran strives to create “impossible spaces,” where interchangeable figure/ground relationships induce a feeling of instability and where forms simultaneously push in and pull out. Informed by the work of Lorser Feitelson, who utilizes discordant colour combinations to enhance the unsettling spatial effects in his “Magical Space Forms” series, Moran explores how one might use the push and pull effect of colour and form to reflect broader societal concerns.
Kristine Moran received her MFA from Hunter College in New York. She was included in the Phaidon Anthology “Vitamin P2” and has exhibited in solo shows at Nicelle Beauchene (New York) and Daniel Faria Gallery (Toronto). Her work has been acquired by several international collections, including the Saatchi Collection (London, UK), the Albright Knox, (Buffalo), and various corporate collections including Fidelty International, (London, UK). Moran will open a solo museum exhibition at Tom Thomson Art Gallery in Ontario in 2021.
Kristine Moran, Utopias Come In Waves, 2020, exhibition view, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto
Kristine Moran, Utopias Come In Waves, 2020, exhibition view, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto
Kristine Moran, Utopias Come In Waves, 2020, exhibition view, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto
Kristine Moran, Utopias Come In Waves, 2020, exhibition view, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto
Kristine Moran, Mad Cap Swimmers 11, 2020, Oil on linen, 60 x 48 inches
Kristine Moran, Mad Cap Swimmers 12, 2020, Oil on linen, 60 x 48 inches
Kristine Moran, Mad Cap Swimmers 5, 2020, Oil on linen, 60 x 48 inches
Kristine Moran, Mad Cap Swimmers 13, 2020, Oil on linen, 60 x 48 inches
Kristine Moran, Mad Cap Swimmers 6, 2020, Oil on linen, 60 x 48 inches
Kristine Moran, Mad Cap Swimmers 7, 2020, Oil on linen, 60 x 48 inches
Kristine Moran, Mad Cap Swimmers 14, 2020, Oil on linen, 60 x 48 inches
Kristine Moran, Utopias Come In Waves, 2020, exhibition view, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto
Kristine Moran, Utopias Come In Waves, 2020, exhibition view, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto
Kristine Moran, Island In The Sky, 2020, Oil on linen, 96 x 72 inches
Kristine Moran, Island In The Sky, 2020, Oil on linen, 96 x 72 inches
Kristine Moran, Utopias Come In Waves, 2020, exhibition view, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto
Kristine Moran, Utopias Come In Waves, 2020, exhibition view, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto
Kristine Moran, Utopias Come In Waves, 2020, exhibition view, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto
Kristine Moran, Utopias Come In Waves, 2020, exhibition view, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto
Kristine Moran, The Golden Rule, 2020, Oil on linen, 72 x 66 inches
Kristine Moran, Utopias Come In Waves, 2020, exhibition view, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto
Kristine Moran, Utopias Come In Waves, 2020, exhibition view, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto
Kristine Moran, Romanticists Peak, 2020, Oil on linen, 10 x 8 inches
Kristine Moran, Utopias Come In Waves, 2020, exhibition view, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto
Kristine Moran, Utopias Come In Waves, 2020, exhibition view, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto
Kristine Moran, Utopias Come In Waves, 2020, exhibition view, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto
Kristine Moran, Utopias Come In Waves, 2020, exhibition view, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto
Kristine Moran, Utopias Come In Waves, 2020, exhibition view, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto
Kristine Moran, Mad Cap Swimmers 10, 2020, Oil on linen, 60 x 48 inches
Kristine Moran, Utopias Come In Waves, 2020, exhibition view, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto
Kristine Moran, Utopias Come In Waves, 2020, exhibition view, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto
Kristine Moran, Spring Canyon, 2020, Oil on linen, 20 x 16 inches
Kristine Moran, Utopias Come In Waves, 2020, exhibition view, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto
Kristine Moran, Utopias Come In Waves, 2020, exhibition view, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto
Kristine Moran, Seasteading, 2020, Oil on linen, 96 x 72 inches
Kristine Moran, Utopias Come In Waves, 2020, exhibition view, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto
Kristine Moran, Utopias Come In Waves, 2020, exhibition view, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto
Kristine Moran, Searchlight, 2019, Oil on linen, 16 x 20 inches
Kristine Moran, Last Look, 2019, Oil on linen, 20 x 16 inches
Kristine Moran, Warm Wave, 2019, Oil on linen, 10 x 8 inches
Kristine Moran, Underwater, 2019, Oil on linen, 10 x 8 inches
Kristine Moran, Wave Through, 2019, Oil on linen, 24 x 20 inches
Kristine Moran, Black and White Wave, 2019, Oil on linen, 20 x 16 inches
Kristine Moran, Blue Wave, 2019, Oil on linen, 10 x 8 inches
Kristine Moran, Lost Stroke, 2019, Oil on linen, 10 x 8 inches