Location: United States
Margaret Withers is a visual artist who lives and works in New York city. Her paintings are fragments of stories found in an imaginary landscape that capture in the abstract the conflicting ideas of joy and melancholy, as well as community and aloneness in regards to the concept of home and communication. Originally from Texas, Withers has exhibited her work throughout the country and internationally in Brussels, Australia, Berlin, China and Russia. Her artwork is included in multiple private and corporate collections and has won numerous awards including a 2013/2015 resident fellowship to the Vermont Studio Center, a fellowship to the Millay Colony, and a 2013 USA Project Grant. She is represented by Arcilesi | Homberg Fine Art in NYC, William Baczek Fine Art in Northampton, MA and Sergott Contemporary in Rancho Santa Fe, CA.
Into these ocean landscapes I’ve painted a large botanic contraption, and in some regards, it’s the last remaining planetary or mechanical system that floats above the earth, abandoned and silent. It’s just out of reach of the humans who are left, floating on a log, where it seems that something might occur, or has already occurred, and now the consequence is being played out, and like the loop of a scene from a movie these people are set to repeat the narrative assigned to them, forever adrift in the world's vastness.
2015
Flashe paint, ink, acrylic gouache on linen, driftwood, small people, Bugatti Veyron, telephone poles
61.5x49.5x5 inch or 157x126 x13 cm
“An everyman's flight from distraction”
2015
flashe paint, ink, acrylic gouache, wood, small people, telephone poles;1972 Chevrolet Camaro Z28
79.5"x49"
2015
flashe paint, ink, acrylic gouache, wood, small people, telephone poles;Lamborghini Aventador LP 700-4
49.5"x79.5"
“ok, short straw goes back for the diapers”
2015
Flashe paint, ink, acrylic gouache on linen,wood, small people, Corvette C6, telephone poles
61.5x49.5x5 inch or 157x126 x13 cm
2015
flashe paint, ink, acrylic gouache on linen, wood, small people, Porsche 356 Speedster, telephone poles
61.5x49.5x5 inch or 157x126 x13 cm
2015
flashe paint, ink, acrylic gouache, wood, small people, telephone poles;1960 Ford F100 Pickup Truck
49.5"x79.5"
“drive from Phillies up under a mantle of neutron stars”
2015
flashe paint, ink, acrylic gouache on linen, wood, small people, Cadillac Eldorado, telephone poles
49.5x61.5x5 inch or 126x157x13 cm
2015
flashe paint, ink, acrylic gouache on linen, wood, small people, Oldsmobile 442 Coupe, telephone poles
61.5x49.5x5 inch or 157x126 x13 cm
The last couple of years I've concurrently worked on a series of paintings that are an exploration of the subjects of home and communication within a colorful chaotic landscape. I like to use the house as a symbol in my paintings because their simplicity obscures the complex and uniquely personal relationship that each viewer has to an idea of ‘home’. The telephone poles are a universal and quickly fading icon of communication that symbolize emotional connection, formality, privacy, disconnection and alienation.
tickling Hekatonkheir; 2016; 41.5"x29.5";flashe, watercolor, gouache, ink on paper
“sailors in big blasts of wind”
sailors in big blasts of wind, drunkenly toss homes at Kypris; 2016; 41.5"x29.5";flashe, watercolor, gouache, ink on paper