Kindred Spirits: Nancy Legge and Brigitte McReynolds

First Tuesday ArtWalk:
* October 3, 5:30 – 7:30 pm

Reception for the artists:
* Saturday, October 7, 4:00 pm – 6:00 pm

Exhibition Dates:
* October 3 – 31

Seager Gray Gallery presents Kindred Spirits: Nancy Legge and Brigitte McReynolds

Both artists use the language of abstraction to conjure up a sense of poetry and mysterious beauty in their figures and in McReynolds’ case, elegant and evocative abstracted landscapes.

Each artist brings to their chosen medium a rigorous dedication to experimentation and faith in the creative process.

Nancy Legge

The abstracted figure has always been a visual preoccupation for Legge – particularly as it relates to the Japanese idea of “zan ketsu no bi” – finding beauty in something missing. Perhaps not beauty alone but that particular kind of beauty that is tied up with meaning – as in poetry where the heart of the matter might be found as much in what is omitted as in what is present.

Legge’s process is one of exploration and discovery. She regards the clay as a collaborator in her process. “I like to feel the breath within the skin of the clay,” she once remarked to an interviewer writing about her work, “When the clay is very malleable, you can capture that sense of life.” Her aim is not to replicate the human figure, but to get at something more essential – the human condition, the transitory nature of all things and the nobility of the struggle to find meaning.

Brigitte McReynolds

Brigitte McReynolds was born in Rosenheim, Germany and studied in Munich and Italy. She moved to California in 1989 and immersed herself in painting and printmaking. She lives in Sonoma with her husband and daughter and returns to Germany and Italy every year to continue her work in painting and monotype.

McReynolds brings a fresh approach to figuration with her bright palette and fluid, sensual drawing line. Working from abstraction, creating broad, layered areas of color, McReynolds finds her figures in the process of painting. They begin to develop personalities of their own. Her figures are decidedly feminine and their powers transform the space. McReynolds is a disciplined painter who loves her materials. She has honed her instincts over many years of exploration and arrived at a place where she is confident in taking risks and letting the works resolve themselves.