Figure / Narrative

Grace Hartigan (1922 - 2008), Heejo Kim, Beverly McIver, Raoul Middleman (1935 - 2021)

ON VIEW: NOVEMBER 17, 2022 - JANUARY 14, 2023

OPENING RECEPTION: THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 6:00 - 8:00PM

C. Grimaldis Gallery is pleased to present Figure / Narrative, an exhibition featuring Grace Hartigan (1922 - 2008), Heejo Kim, Beverly McIver, and Raoul Middleman (1935 - 2021); four artists with works centered around bold representations of figure and storytelling. This exhibition showcases contemporary paintings and drawings that pair intuitive mark making with personal and historical contexts to build worlds for their subjects.

Grace Hartigan’s washes of color blend together figurative context with the artist’s signature sensibility of vibrant color, active gesture, and painterly freedom. There is an immediate yet contemplative presence in Hartigan’s work that renders her characters both mysterious and seeped in complexity. Beverly McIver examines racial, gender, social, and occupational identities in her narrative and autobiographical paintings, working to both confront and amaze the viewer with her prowess.

The exhibition also merges the works of Baltimore’s famous Raoul Middleman with that of second-year Hoffberger student Heejo Kim (expected graduation Spring 2023). Middleman’s marks spontaneously dance across the surface to highlight the active gestures in worlds observed and imagined. He has an unrestrained expression to his work; charged with playfulness, paintings feel like pieces of recalled and constructed memory, each lived through curvaceous, vibrantly molten bodies huddled together in moments of domesticity and candor. An almost sentient use of light illuminates, confronts, and sometimes hides portions of narrative, while Kim’s figures exist with a quiet brazen in their portrayal of the familiar.