Patricia Udell: Color, Space and the Female Form
July 21 to August 13, 2020
Artist Reception, Saturday, July 25, 5 – 7 pm
Quogue gallery is pleased to present “Patricia Udell: Color Space and the Female Form”. The exhibition will feature her gouache paintings as well as her plaster reliefs. Udell’s body of work explores color, space and the female form across a variety of media. Early in her career, Udell created a series of small bronze sculptures exploring the female form. Over time, she progressed beyond the figurative in favor of more abstracted examinations of shape, line and negative space through series of monochromatic plaster reliefs and painted reliefs of corrugated cardboard and wood. In each, colorful, curvilinear bands streak vertically across a white background creating a linear, yet organic assemblage of shapes contained within an understood rectangular background. Each band curves and bends with angular crooks and semicircular arches, molding the negative space between the sculptural elements into shapes as dynamic as the plaster itself.
Udell further distilled this concept into a series of colorful flat gouache paintings. Similar in composition to her sculpture, she blurs the distinction between form and negative space by assembling vibrant bands of colors running up and down the paper in what Udell describes as a, ‘back and forth’ between gesture, positive and negative space. Each band of color is separated from one another with a thin white line, reinforcing the impression that the shapes are individual units rather than a cohesive mass.
Describing her work as a ‘visual breath,’ Udell seeks to evoke an emotional response in viewers, stating that, ‘the joy [she has] for simplicity allows the viewer to have a moment of happiness with nothing asked of them when looking at [her] work.’
Udell received her B.A. in Design of the Environment and a B.F.A in Sculpture from the University of Pennsylvania. She lives and works in New York City and Quogue, New York.
ABOUT QUOGUE GALLERY
The mission of the Quogue Gallery is to present a program of artistic excellence by showcasing the work of prominent, mid-career and emerging artists in the modernist tradition. Its core focus is on discovering and exhibiting figurative and abstract expressionist painters who are recognized historically as well as those of great promise whose work has not received the attention and critical response it so richly deserves.
Since its founding in 2014, the Quogue Gallery’s place in the modern and contemporary art world has been widely acknowledged by the press. The gallery has been featured in many publications, including the New York Times, Dan’s Paper, Beach Magazine, Hamptons Art Hub, Artnet News, Southampton Press, and others. The gallery has also received critical recognition in reviews published by Hamptons Art Hub, Artnet News and other outlets.
Quogue Gallery is at 44 Quogue Street, Quogue, NY 11959. quoguegallery.com For more information, call 203.321.9427, or email info@quoguegallery.com.