MEGHAN BRADY
Said + Done
September 12 - November 7, 2020
Press Release
Mrs. is very proud to present Said + Done, an exhibition of bold, new paintings by Meghan Brady. Following a two person exhibition with Carolyn Salas in 2018 and a presentation at NADA House 2019, Brady’s first solo exhibition with the gallery was originally set to open in April 2020, but was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The title and the works in this exhibition are about the opposing modes of communication through written and spoken language, versus the physical act of making. For Brady, painting is a process of getting lost and finding her way: a progressive contradiction between body and brain knowledge; logical and illogical thought.
Focused on what cannot be expressed through words, Brady considers the possibility that we live with worlds inside ourselves which have yet to be discovered, largely due to the failings of language in helping us make sense of them. Does language make these worlds, or is it simply the tool we use to rationalize worlds that already exist?
Occupying the space where these two opposing knowledges merge, each painting in this exhibition contains a central gesture in which the composition is left in balance, curling in on itself. These gestures open to earthly things - an elbow, a moon, a snake. Often, Brady will use paint as if it were nearly collage, with slabs of color interrupting the surface. There is a coherence to making a painting that is personal; a practice which is built up over time. It is Brady’s aim to trust her own body and brain logic, even if it makes little sense in the moment of creation. These small risks come together to make something that is in itself a communication; a world.
Meghan Brady received her BA from Smith College and her MFA from Boston University. She was the 2017 and 2019 recipient of the Ellis Beauregard Foundation Residency and a 2018 Hewnoaks Summer Fellowship, as well as a 2019 MacDowell Fellowship. She will attend Surf Point Foundation’s residency program in late 2020. Recent exhibitions include The University of Tulsa, Tulsa, OK; Steel House Projects and Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockland; Perimeter Gallery, Belfast; and Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME; Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects, New York; NADA House, Governors Island; Anderson Gallery, Buffalo; Mrs., Maspeth; and a residency/exhibition at Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Brooklyn, NY, which received a mention by The New York Times.
For available works, press inquiries and additional information, please contact hello@mrsgallery.com.
Press
Fast, unfussy, bright: An interview with Meghan Brady
Sangram Majumdar, Two Coats of Paint