MOLLY LOWE

At once abstract and figurative, the paintings in Falling Together channel a way of observation that seeks balance within states of limbo, straddling reality and imagination. Lowe begins from assorted everyday images, combining anonymous online imagery and personal photos, she slices, dices, mixes, and mutates these sources until she arrives at scenes that expose the awkwardness of life in a human body—physically and emotionally.

Unconventional assemblages of colour, these oil on linen compositions emerge from a palette that skips, jumps, and flicks you on the nose. In moments she leaves behind clues to specific scenes or possible narratives, yet the overall effect of the work requires viewers to relax their gaze, untether expectations and let the pictures untangle themselves through the flow of her expressive improvisational gestures.

In addition to painting, Lowe frequently works in performance and sculpture, as such, her paintings are events in their own right. Agile, emanating a sense of action, they record mental and physical movement of the artist’s own body; as they evolve, they take on a life of their own. Enigmatic and voyeuristic, the compositions strike at ordinary life and personal ‘events’—having sex, stretching, smoking a cigarette—Lowe articulates the contours of human experience, stringing up something recognisable while simultaneously slipping from our grasp.

Molly Lowe (b. 1983, Palo Alto, CA) received her MFA from Columbia University and her BFA from Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). She has had solo exhibitions and performances at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Lilith Performance Studio, Malmo, Sweden; Pioneer Works, Brooklyn, NY; Suzanne Geiss Company, New York, NY; SculptureCenter, Long Island City, New York; and Performa 13, New York, NY. Her films have screened at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY and JOAN, Los Angeles, CA. Lowe has participated in residencies at the Shandaken Project, Storm King Art Center, New Windsor, NY; Pioneer Works, Brooklyn, NY; Recess Art, New York, NY; and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, ME. In 2015, she received the New York Foundation for the Arts interdisciplinary artist fellowship award, and she was recently nominated for a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation award. Lowe lives and works in New York.