Kathryn Markel Fine Arts is delighted to announce an upcoming exhibition of paintings and works on paper by Samantha Haring and Tess Michalik, Reprieve. Haring and Michalik met while studying at Northern Illinois University and have maintained a friendship ever since. Though their respective techniques diverge, they find common ground in their romantic treatment of domestic subjects.
Haring’s oeuvre commemorates the quotidian trappings of the artist’s life. Bubblewrap, cardboard boxes, and glass jars are portrayed with the masterful sensitivity of a Dutch still-life. Of her work, the artist states, “I make quiet paintings in a noisy world.” Indeed, in subdued shades of chalk pastel and oil paint, Haring crafts an immersive scene, offering a serene reprieve from the excess of consumer culture.
Inspired by vintage wallpaper designs, Michalik renders delicate floral subjects in voluptuous layers of impasto. Languid brushstrokes animate each petal and leaf recalling the sensuous ornamentation of Rococo. On her practice, Michalik writes, “painting is a celebration of joy, anxiety, simple pleasures, decoration, ornamentation, and the material nature of paint.”
Samantha Haring is an artist and educator based in Cincinnati, OH. She has held solo shows across the United States, including at the Gumtree Museum of Art in Mississippi, Gallery 19 in Chicago, and the Ohio State University. Haring’s work is published in issues #119 and #123 of New American Paintings, as well as in several recent Manifest INDA and INPA publications.
Michalik has exhibited internationally in art institutions, fairs, university galleries, community spaces, and commercial galleries including the Schoolhouse Gallery in Massachusetts, the Winnipeg Art Gallery in Manitoba, and the Wonder Fair in Kansas. Her paintings have been published internationally in Architectural Digest. Michalik’s newspaper, Devour, was published in collaboration with Brooklyn based Raw Meat Collective, and was recently acquired by the Museum of Modern Art Library in New York as part of the exhibit, “Please Knock: A Teen Album of Art” Michalik lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
