Details:
① Artwork:
Study for Afternoon Nap
This drawing employs an aerial perspective, giving viewers an intimate look into a domestic interior scene where animals and humans are looking for space to rest or live. A deep blue and purple shadow covers the composition, suggesting the presence of an open door—which prompts viewers to imagine another room. The light focuses viewers' attention on the small orange fox or cat in the bottom right, creating empathy for the creature.
The use of drawing as both a medium and a subject is hundreds of years old—encompassing cave drawings, preparatory work for renaissance frescos and hand-made works paper from Asia. The role of drawing in Haggarty’s work is omnipresent, as she employs line, texture and mark-making in all of her work. This drawing on toned paper uses a combination of wax crayon, colored pencil and airbrush—suggesting the look of a painting but still featuring line and texture in every corner. The artist’s experience as a lecturer and critic have influenced her desire to honor elements of neglected art history in her compositions–including work from the Edo period of Japanese art, Indian painting and Indigenous art.
Specs:
② Offered by:
③ Artist:
Catherine Haggarty’s paintings explore forgotten elements of art history in their depiction of animals, interiors and human subjects resting in their home. Using an airbrush gun alongside wax crayons and oil sticks, the artist’s work explores the idiosyncratic ways in which drawing and writing relate to painting. Haggarty employs pictorial strategies studied and taught in her seminars—drawing influence from diverse sources, including the Edo period of Japan, Indian painting and indigenous art.
BIO:
Catherine Haggarty received an MFA from Mason Gross, Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey in 2011.
Solo exhibitions of Haggarty’s work have taken place at: Massey Klein Gallery in New York City; This Friday Next Friday in Brooklyn, New York; Bloomsburg University in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania; One Main Window in New York City; One River School of Art and Design Gallery in Bergen County, New Jersey; and Look and Listen in Marseille, France.
Haggarty’s paintings and curatorial work have been reviewed by and featured in: Bomb Magazine, Artnet, Hyperallergic, Two Coats of Paint, Brooklyn Magazine, The New York Times, Maake Magazine, Art Maaze Magazine, Art Spiel, Final Friday Podcast, Sound and Vision Podcast, The Black and White Project, Curating Contemporary’s book Eraser, and The Observer.
Haggarty has been a visiting artist and critic at: MICA in Baltimore, Maryland (2022); the University of Connecticut MFA in Storrs, Connecticut (2022); Pratt BFA in Brooklyn, New York (2022); the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon (2021); Boston University MFA in Boston, Massachusetts (2021); SUNY Purchase MFA in Purchase, New York (2020); Hunter MFA in New York City (2020); Denison University in Granville, Ohio (2020); and Brooklyn College MFA in Brooklyn, New York (2019).
In 2018, Haggarty was the Anderson Endowed Lecturer at Penn State University in University Park, Pennsylvania.
Haggarty lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, where the artist is an adjunct professor at the School of Visual Arts and is the co-founder and director of the NYC Crit Club.