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Between the Lines

Rachel Major and Kathleen King

January 12 - February 11, 2023

Artists’ reception: Saturday, January 14, 1-4 pm

Artists’ talk: Saturday, January 28, 2 pm

First Friday: February 3, 5-8 pm

Rachel MajorCover Up, acrylic on canvas, 2021, 30″ x 30″

Kathleeen King, Internal Difference, painted wood assemblage, 2022, 16”H x 12”W x 2”D

 

GearBox Gallery presents Between the Lines, an exhibition of paintings by Rachel Major and sculpture by Kathleen King. The artists share an interest in precarity and chance, evoking meanings that are fugitive and implied rather than explicitly stated. In both bodies of work, boldly colored lines skitter and flex across geometric planes and open spaces.

Rachel Major’s current series involves both covering up and exposing. The paintings are made solely by dripping paint onto canvas. Major controls the placement of the drip only to give up that control and allow the paint to move on its own, through gravity and chance, choosing its own path. Occasionally she coaxes the paint to move in a direction that exposes specific colors. Fragments of color are left trying to hide yet pushing to be seen. In pursuing chance operations, Major’s paintings almost make themselves. A free flow is conjured, like rivers running or thoughts pouring out and connecting.

Kathleen King constructs painted wood sculptures and assemblages out of scraps of wood gleaned from discard piles and building site dumpsters. Form follows function as supple segments are connected and attempt to hold. The visual language speaks in asymmetrical rhythms and broken patterns. Monochromatic color presents an intensity that relates within the space and directly to the viewer with immediacy. For example, with its armature exposed and radically vulnerable, the sculpture titled “Red Horse” stretches vertically, teetering on precarious legs. Like a young animal or a revolutionary impulse, its potential to rise and become is manifestly present.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Rachel Major

Rachel Major has lived and worked in San Francisco since 1994. Originally from Toronto, Canada, she graduated from the Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD) in Toronto, Canada, has a BFA from Nova Scotia College of Art (NSCAD) in Halifax, Nova Scotia as well an MFA from Mills College in Oakland, CA. She teaches art to children with San Francisco Arts Education Project and the LEAP Arts in Education in San Francisco public schools. Major has exhibited in Canada, France and the U.S. and is a member of GearBox Gallery.

Kathleen King

Kathleen King constructs painted wood sculptures and assemblages out of scraps of wood gleaned from discard piles and building site dumpsters. Form follows function as supple segments are connected and attempt to hold. The visual language speaks in asymmetrical rhythms and broken patterns. Monochromatic color presents an intensity that relates within the space and directly to the viewer with immediacy. For example, with its armature exposed and radically vulnerable, the sculpture titled “Red Horse” stretches vertically, teetering on precarious legs. Like a young animal or a revolutionary impulse, its potential to rise and become is manifestly present.