NEWS & EVENTS

EXHBITION OPENS AT WHITE PINES, BYRDCLIFFE ART COLONY IN WOODSTOCK, NY

Inaugural Exhibition at the Walls of White Pines, Byrdcliffe • Katharine L. McKenna: American Painter

(WOODSTOCK, NY) June 13, 2014 - Painter Katharine L. McKenna inaugurates a new summer series of exhibitions at White Pines, the most spectacular of the historical buildings at the Byrdcliffe Art Colony, organized by Heather Hutchinson and Byron Bell.  McKenna’s luminous landscape paintings will be the first to enliven the space in the original home of Byrdcliffe founders Ralph and Jane Whitehead, built in 1902. Dubbed the Walls of White Pines, the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild’s new exhibition space allows visitors to engage with contemporary visual art by regional artists while also voyaging back in time to explore the origins of the Arts and Crafts movement in the United States.

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Born in California and a long-time resident of Woodstock, Katharine L. McKenna divides her time between the Hudson Valley and the American West. Her often large-scale oil paintings, developed according to what she defines as “color-light-spirit technique,” reveal a profound attachment to the quintessential formal and coloristic harmonies of Wyoming, Colorado, and Arizona. Monumental rock formations meet flat plains; angular highways cut eerily through landscapes otherwise seemingly uninhabited; high-keyed contrasts of purple and green, orange and blue, surge as seductive lessons in the power of complementaries; endless sky and natural geometries dominate. McKenna’s artistic paragons are evident: Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin in the realms of color and line; Pierre Bonnard in the flattened patterning of her expansive compositions; Georgia O’Keeffe in every way. 

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Wavering between the abstract and vividly spatial, McKenna's landscapes such as Rock Creek, WY or On the Road to Sheridan, WY define landscape as landscape, respecting but defying the structured, staged formality of Hudson River painters such as Thomas Cole. Like her Post-Impressionist models, McKenna works in the often vertical, all-over formats of Japanese artists such as Hokusai or Hiroshige. Her signature, a square consisting of schematic initials and the year in which a work was completed, is a tribute to Japanese printmaker stamps. The landscapes comprising Katharine L. McKenna: American Painter reveal her recent conceptual interests in the work of Georgia O'Keeffe, who along with Charles Sheeler and Marsden Hartley was one of the first American painters to adapt 20th-century European modernism to a specifically American idiom. McKenna, as did O'Keeffe, moves between locales in the west and east of the United States: and like O'Keefe, McKenna imbues all her work with the essence of place. McKenna serves as Vice-President of the Arts Society of Kingston (A.S.K.), which she co-founded in 1995.

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The exhibition is organized by Heather Hutchison and Byron Bell, a visual artist and architect, respectively, and both long-term members of Byrdcliffe's Exhibition Committee. McKenna will give a talk starting at 4:30 during the reception in White Pines, June 13. In addition to experiencing her lushly colorful landscapes, visitors to the exhibition Katharine L. McKenna: American Painter will be able to explore parts of White Pines, constructed in 1902 as the home of Ralph and Jane Whitehead. Along with Bolton Brown and Hervey White, the Whiteheads founded the Byrdcliffe Art Colony, which has been an enduring site of collaboration for artists, writers, and musicians for the past 112 years. Ralph Whitehead was an acolyte of William Morris, the English designer and theorist who defined the Arts and Crafts aesthetic, which privileges hand-made and individually crafted decorative arts, furniture, and architecture in direct reaction to industrialization. White Pines is the quintessence of that streamlined elegance; its interior consists of exclusively horizontal and vertical forms, the unadorned purity of line of its built-in furniture, grand staircase, and dark wood surfaces reflecting the fundamentally modernist ethos of the Arts and Crafts movement. White Pines, the jewel of Byrdcliffe, is now a summer exhibition space that celebrates the depth of the Whiteheads' dedication to the visual arts.

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After the opening of Katharine L. McKenna: American Painter on June 13, a gala fundraising dinner will be held in the beautiful Loom Room at White Pines. Held in honor of McKenna's contributions to the arts and dedication to Byrdcliffe's interdisciplinary vision, all proceeds from this benefit will go towards sustaining the organization's mission as a locus for creative encounters for artists, students, arts professionals, and toward preserving Byrdcliffe's remarkable heritage. For more information about this special event, call Jeremy Adams or Derin Tanyol at 845.679.2079.

Location: The Walls of White Pines, 454 Upper Byrdcliffe Road, Woodstock Dates: June 13 – July 27, 2014 

Gallery hours: Saturdays & Sundays 12-5 pm during run of exhibition; Tuesdays through Friday by appointment

Opening reception: Friday, June 13, 4-6 pm at White Pines, 454 Upper Byrdcliffe Road

Admission: Free

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