Details:
① Artwork:
Raised Sleeve
This piece is from the artist’s ongoing series of oil paintings of cropped figure studies and their clothing. Referencing edited smart phone and social media images, she manipulates her close views of these bodies while stripping them of a specific context. In this painting, a figure wears tights and stands in profile, reaching behind to touch another draped cloth.
By mixing classical oil painting methods with contemporary photography to emphasize hyperclarity, intensity, artificial lighting, and cropping, Kathryn Mecca uses the human figure to express ideas of intimacy, movement, and perception. She zooms in on a particular feature of each figure—a shoulder, an elbow, or a chest—to strip the painting of a specific context or frame of reference. With her overly stylized version of reality, Mecca’s quiet yet manicured moments deny the viewer a genuine connection while creating an artificial sense of intimacy.
Specs:
③ Artist:
Using both traditional and contemporary technologies, Kathryn Mecca paints the human figure to express ideas of intimacy, movement, and perception.
Influenced by her time in Europe studying art history with an emphasis on Fascism and Medieval Italian Art, Mecca uses classical oil painting methods while simultaneously drawing from contemporary photography to emphasize instances of hyperclarity, intensity, artificial lighting, and cropping. By zooming in on a particular feature of each figure—a shoulder, an elbow, or a chest—Mecca strips the painting of any specific context, compelling the viewer to consider the figure without any frame of reference. With her overly stylized version of reality, Mecca’s quiet yet manicured moments deny the viewer a genuine connection while creating an artificial sense of intimacy.
Kathryn Mecca was born in 1987 and lives in Maryland. She received an MFA from the Tyler School of Art and Architecture at Temple University in Philadelphia, PA (2020) and her BA in Visual Art and Sociology from the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ (2010).
She has mounted solo exhibitions at Massey Klein Gallery in New York City, NY (2022); Temple Contemporary in Philadelphia, PA (2021); Automat in Philadelphia, PA (2020); and Azarian-McCullough Gallery at St. Thomas Aquinas College in Sparkill, NY (2016).
Her work has been included in group exhibitions such as the Prisma Art Prize at Fondamenta Gallery in Rome, Italy (2023); Hajimemashite! at Bridge Mogura Gallery in Tokyo, Japan (2023); Sakura at Gallery Jo Yana, Marseille, France (2023); Lucky Charm at Moosey Gallery in London, UK (2021); and Tyler Painters at Massey Klein Gallery in New York City, NY (2020) among others.
This piece is from the artist’s ongoing series of oil paintings of cropped figure studies and their clothing. Referencing edited smart phone and social media images, she manipulates her close views of these bodies while stripping them of a specific context. In this painting, a figure wears tights and stands in profile, reaching behind to touch another draped cloth.More
- Unframed
- Signed
