Yeah, Saira McLaren kicks ass. I loved her pink tie-dye
painting of an abstract mountain with a line of bleach across the top the
second I saw it at Small Black Door. She also recently appeared in Julie Torres’s
enjoyable painting survey at Parallel. I am pretty psyched that she is getting
a show on the Lower East Side, seems like things are a happening for her, and it’s
well deserved. Her paintings involve a lot of pink and bright airy colors that complement
the pink. The colors lay like the most attractive blemishes ever, on a raw
visible canvas, often seeming to float and almost bump into each other. Occasionally,
the shapes are traversed by dark squiggly lines that dissipate at the edges as
if applied with spray paint. I find the work hard not to love, the raw canvas
and light application of color have a strong tie-dyed hippie context, but the radiance
of the color palate seems to wash away any of the negative connotations one
might associate with hippies and just leaves me feeling up. The work is
accompanied by little ceramic sculptures that are used for stands for some of the
paintings. The objects are white with similar squiggly lines to those in the paintings.
The objects feel extraneous, but not without promise, and it’s always nice to
see an artist pushing the limits of what it is they do, even if the immediate
results aren’t resolved. But as of right now, Saira McLaren is easily my
favorite painter.
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