Kate Shepherd: ABC and sometimes Y

In a selection of paintings in enamel and oil on aluminum panel, Shepherd paints her constructions—her diagrammatic configurations of linear forms—in thin lines of black and white painted on smooth, reflective surfaces rendered in a variety of colors ranging from pastel pink to vibrant yellow to black and white. For Shepherd, her choice of colors is dictated by innate emotional reaction to each individual composition, thereby evoking a relationship between color and form. In a selection of works, Shepherd divides the background of the painting between two tones, adding another plane to the pictorial field. The glossy surface of the enamel painting reflects its environs, placing the painting in a perpetual, dynamic conversation with its viewers and surroundings. These paintings present entirely new constructions, hand-rendered on Shepherd’s pictorial planes, that convey varying degrees of stability and tension like sculptures made with translucent planes. Some works see many forms overlap, building a sturdy core, while others see delicately balanced configurations of barely touching shapes. In a series of watercolors on view in the small gallery, monochromatic planar shapes are rendered in contrasting tones to stir a sensation of movement and dynamism. Shepherd’s background in figurative painting is hinted at by way of the attention to naturalistic gravity and credible space. 

Throughout the gallery, a selection of large-scale painted plywood sculptures prompts a dialogue with the paintings on view. The sculptures mirror the lexicon Shepherd develops throughout the painted works, revealing the logic behind the line work. The concept for these sculptures stems from experimentation on a smaller scale eight years prior, beginning with forms that emerged as byproducts of works on paper. Composed in plywood to allow them to maintain the thin profile that characterizes Shepherd’s constructions, these works recontextualize the artist’s signature forms in three dimensions.   

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