Whitney McVeigh October 9, 2009

Key information
Whitney McVeigh will take place from 9 October – 1 November 2009
Location: A Foundation, Rochelle School
Address: Rochelle School, Arnold Circus, London E2 7ES
Opening hours: Monday – Sunday, noon - 6pm, Thursdays open late until 8pm
Tel: 0207 729 8275
www.afoundation.org.uk
Nearest tube: Old Street, Liverpool Street

A Foundation is delighted to present a solo exhibition of new work by the American-born artist Whitney McVeigh. Set in the cavernous first floor space of A Foundation’s Rochelle School in Shoreditch, East London, the exhibition will showcase a selection of monoprints, collages and works on found paper.

Operating through a combination of intention and accident, McVeigh’s new work has a vivid immediacy which celebrates the potential of the medium to suggest, rather than define, possible readings. In a series of large-scale monoprints, the black acrylic, rich and tactile in its material presence, is coaxed into yielding interpretations that refuse to settle. Through a combination of drawing, gesture and chance, the works pulse with a vital, contagious energy, oscillating between abstraction and figuration.

In the collages, this fertile indeterminacy keeps the viewer busy through a free association of word and image, untethered from their source and made to speak in tongues. Also showing are works on found paper. McVeigh isolates pages from sources such as sailing manuals, old encyclopaedias and book keeping ledgers and assaults them with drawing or mark-making, prompting dialogues through obliteration and accretion.

At first glance, the pieces may appear simple in their resonant immediacy but are, in fact, remarkably complex. McVeigh’s practice involves instinctively creating ‘in the moment’, responding to and activating the materials at hand through cutting, pasting, drawing, tearing and painting. The apparently austere colour scheme further reinforces the impact and physicality of the work.

Whitney McVeigh, curated by Sotiris Kyriacou, will coincide with Frieze Art Fair. A catalogue with text by JJ Charlesworth will accompany the exhibition.

McVeigh’s work is currently on show at the NY Arts Pavilion at the 53rd Venice Biennale until November 22nd.