June 28 - July 21, 2019
Margaret Buchanan
Subterranean
Abstract Photography
Frable Gallery
Opening Reception
Friday, June 28, 2019
6:00 - 9:00 pm
Free and Open to the Public
Closing Artist Talk
Sunday, July 21, 2019
2:00 pm
Free and Open to the Public
Artist Statement
FOR ME, THERE IS A CERTAIN WONDER in the unnoticed—some natural delicacy from my morning walk, a patch of light on a wall, gritty urban pavement. And so for years, I have given way to an irresistible urge to collect images: manhole covers, doorways, abandoned billboards, dilapidated train cars, the palimpsest in old hand-painted wall signage. Or simply the remnants of a spent moment. These photos are signposts in my life, a kind of visual record of my impulse to look below the surface of my surroundings for a new way of seeing them. ■ The images here—extracted from parking garage walls—are born of that impulse. As a painter, I am drawn by the textural consequences of time and weather on these subterranean walls and surfaces. I am intrigued by the accidental collaboration with the workers who came before me with their glue guns, chalk lines, spackle knives, and pencils. ■ The resulting marks, at once systematic and arbitrary, reveal a kind of signature in some places, others, small drawings or diagrams, random arithmetic calculations; the residual adhesive that here evokes Japanese calligraphy, or there an Aboriginal pattern of dots; the remains of wall repairs—dabs, smears, stripes, patches of concrete
or plaster. ■ As a typophile, I love the hand-rendered number and letter forms. Always the repetition. And making the mundane visible. ■
Biography
As an artist, Margaret Buchanan has toggled between a number of disciplines, including design, painting, photography, book art, and collage. She was graduated cum laude with a bachelor of fine arts in Communication Arts and Graphic Design from Virginia Commonwealth University where she has also taught. She studied painting at the Leo Marchutz School of Drawing and Painting in Aix-en-Provence, France, and at VCU and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond,Virginia. She has worked in the advertising / graphic design field for more than forty years, currently heading her own firm, Buchanan Design. Her paintings and books have been exhibited across the United States and Canada. One of her books, First Impression: A China Diary, is part of the Rare Book and Manuscript Collection at Columbia University. This is her first exhibit of photographic images. June 2019
More information: www.margaretbuchanan.com
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