Cris Worley Fine Arts is pleased to present our fifth solo exhibition of paintings on found paper by gallery artist Maysey Craddock. Soil and Sea opens as an online exhibition, Saturday, April 11th.
Known for a body of work that examines and documents the ever-receding coastline and wetlands of the South, Craddock’s gouache paintings on found paper echo an escalating awareness of the effects of climate change. Working from her own photographs, she creates abstracted drawings from the landscapes that are then transferred onto sewn-together pieces of found paper bags. Layers of gouache are then applied in a process that taps into the grander history of the nature she captures, of making and unmaking.
Craddock’s delicate interpretation of these woodlands captures a discreet moment in time over the centuries they have existed, challenging their perceived permanence and bringing to the forefront of the viewer’s mind the reality of inevitable change. These liminal spaces in nature on the very cusp of environmental entropy are often overlooked and unnoticed, but not to Craddock.
Soil and Sea presents seven new paintings that amplify the body of work Craddock has been exploring for two decades. By limiting the color palette of each piece to a range of hues, she captures and distills the ephemeral and transient nature of the wetland’s existence into abstracted landscapes, almost unrecognizable, that radiate with a sensuous atmospheric quality.
“There is a softness and embrace of beauty in the way I am treating these spaces. This resonates with the way I comb these landscapes for imagery - it reminds me of why I connected with these spaces in the first place.”
Maysey Craddock currently lives and works in Memphis, TN. She received her MFA in 2003 from Maine College of Art. She has had solo exhibitions at the Museum of the University of Mississippi, Oxford; Stanier Gallery, Washington & Lee University, Lexington, VA; the Baum Art Gallery, University of Central Arkansas, Conway; and the Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis, TN. Likewise, she has been included in exhibitions at Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton; Walton Art Center, Fayetteville, AK; McNay Museum of Art, San Antonio, TX; Dixon Museum of Art, Memphis, TN, Center on Contemporary Art, Seattle, WA; Contemporary Art Center of New Orleans, and Hunter Museum, Chattanooga. Craddock has received many fellowships including the APSU Tennessee Artist Fellowship, and a Tennessee Arts Commission Fellowship, and has participated in artist residencies both in the US and Germany, including the Oberpfälzer Künstlerhaus Residency and the Vermont Studio Center Residency. Her work is also part of many public and private collections such as the Brooks Museum of Art, The Arkansas Arts Center, Federal Express, Nordstrom, and Pfizer Corporation, among others.
