Edie Carpenter

CURATOR’S STATEMENT

Rebecca Fagg’s and Jack Stratton’s concurrent retrospectives offer comprehensive views of works produced during a 45-year span.

Visitors encounter Rebecca Fagg’s early works upon entering the gallery. A group of figure drawings of nudes display the qualities of observation and formal resolution that inform over 120 works by Fagg on exhibit. The majority in this exhibition are on loan from North Carolina collectors, including a selection of paintings of colorful boxes from the late 80’s to early 90’s. A devastating fire in the artist’s studio in Greensboro is the subject of four paintings depicting burnt canvases, including Visitation #3 (1994) in the collection of The Weatherspoon Museum. Fragile, calcinated fabric draped across darkened stretchers may be read as pure abstraction as well as depictions of the transformational power of fire. Near Franklin, TN (2000) is one of over thirty landscapes by Fagg in the exhibition. Dusk engulfs white fences in horse pastures and an evening rain has burnished the road. Fagg’s ability to register minute changes in dark values and the ways light activates interior spaces is underlined in the many “light fragment” paintings such as the eloquent Blue and Green Chair (2002). In Jack Stratton’s section of the gallery the vibrant early painting Kathleen/Pop (1977) is one of the first works people will discover. The interior scene depicting a young woman disrobing conjures similar subjects by the German expressionists, as does Stratton’s use of color and broad paint handling. A grouping of works on paper installed on one wall in the exhibition includes ink drawings, watercolors and prints. 10

The Seven Sisters (Pleides Star Cluster) (2005) created using wax resist on handmade paper by Vito Ciccone is but one example of experimental techniques Stratton employs. Stratton’s unique narrative style embraces sources from literature; mythology and contemporary culture wars; to name a few. In The Essene (1992), named for the legendary Essene peoples of the Dead Sea Scrolls, an elongated central figure fills the picture plane. Ritual washing of feet takes place next to a pair of burning shoes, a motif that appears is several other works. Chronicles of contemporary life constitute another aspect of Stratton’s oeuvre. The Fogger Truck I (2014), records a seminal event in the artist’s childhood: a group of children on bicycles riding through billowing clouds emanating from a truck. The artist is among them, wearing swimming goggles to see through the mist, arms raised enjoying the refreshing spray. Chimps (The Baby) (2014) was created after a visit to the NC Zoo. Here two stories, that of the visitors crowded before the glass recording the animals, and that of the mother cradling her precious young unfold concurrently.

Rebecca Fagg and Jack Stratton will be on hand to discuss their works during artist gallery hours and artist talks throughout the exhibition. Details available on the retrospectives’ exhibition page on the web.

Edie Carpenter Director, Artistic and Curatorial Programs