Katy Moran

Although Katy Moran’s gestural and highly evocative paintings may appear to be abstract, the artist herself is invariably concerned with the figurative. For her, ideas arise out of the process of painting. She works with the paint, consciously and subconsciously preserving and rejecting marks until she sees they are alive with the energy and power that she considers right. To lose attachment to any figurative referent that may have appeared too soon in the process, she will often turn a canvas and work on it from different perspectives, painting until every part of it works. In this way, she achieves an easy fluidity across the surface that looks as if it were always meant to be just so. Moran remains constantly alert to the unconscious opportunities of chance and time, which she tempers with conscious control, skill and knowledge to make paintings that are intensely and richly powerful.

Moran’s earlier paintings tend to be more loosely gestural with dynamic brushstrokes alive with painted energy and subtly rich colour. Later works, though more structured and detailed, often with added elements of collage, nonetheless abound with the ‘energy’ she demands of all her marks. Even within the modest scale of Moran’s paintings she achieves a remarkable concentration of energy that never fails to thrill viewers. Then there is the pleasure of seeking out the figurative imagery so tantalizingly hinted at in their intriguing titles.

Katy Moran has had solo exhibitions at institutions such as Tate St Ives, Wexner Center for the Arts in Ohio, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art in England, and Andrea Rosen Gallery in New York, among others. She has had work shown in group shows at various international museums, including Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art, and Tate Britain in London.

Courtesy of Parasol Unit