Continuing through March 2, 2013
Toronto based artist Cathy Daley has a knack for grabbing our attention with the powerful nature of her monochromatic black oil pastel drawings on vellum. We are absorbed by her female figurative works, however what takes center stage is not the figure itself, which most often only suggests the legs while leaving out any details or reference to the head and torso. Central to her work is the expression of the gesture embodied in the billowy marks created to explore and suggest layers of seemingly lightweight fabrics as they move through space to music.
Her images are of dancers but also address femininity, fashion and culture. At their core, the drawings radiate a sense of freedom and abandon with only the solidity of the feminine form to give them grounding. Two long, narrow drawings (both "Untitled") most clearly express the general feeling of all of the drawings with their spontaneous, transparent marks and line-work, creating the soft and fluid feel of dresses. Daley’s drawings are pleasurable to view in part by virtue of their basic compositions. Because of their simplicity, the overall power of the images is strengthened.
Published courtesy of ArtSceneCal ©2013
