Stars Align
Gross McCleaf, Philadelphia, PA
July 1 - July 31, 2021
Press Release, via Gross McCleaf:
In her paintings, Kati Gegenheimer uses color, pattern, decoration, and symbolism as ways to express love, ritual, and radical sentimentality. Her sensitivity to touch and brushwork on the canvas as a love letter to being present in a moment; asking us to slow down to see the everyday magic that we often only glance out of the corner of our eye - a shimmer, a twinkle, a cloud passing in the blue sky, a butterfly hovering to look at you. Gegenheimer emphasizes this need to be present in the moment. She writes:
“Time stopped when you entered the room.
You are here for a reason, at this very moment.
Some would say it is luck, others would say it was meant to be.”
The title of the show, Stars Align is particularly appropriate since the works in this exhibition were made in the winter of 2020 and spring of 2021 - shortly after Gegenheimer moved back to Philadelphia, just as the pandemic was coming to an end and at the time the opportunity for Gegenheimer’s first solo exhibition came together. It was important to the artist that this inaugural show took place in Philadelphia, given her personal history in the city. The artist says, “In nature, stars don’t really align but in a metaphorical sense, situations do come together like magic. When this happens, and you can recognize it, it can be like music, it can be like a painting. When the elements come together harmoniously, they can transform into something completely new.”
“When I think about Kati Gegenheimer’s work, I think about time, and I think about my friends. I also think about handfuls of glistening jewels, about orchestral swells and technicolor sunsets, about melodrama and rooms of secret treasure, about dayglow candy from another dimension. I think about golden flickering candlelight in a 1950s Disney cartoon burning out of the darkness. I think about the moment between confetti exploding into the air and when it begins to descend, stretched out into infinity. I think about what it means to give someone something beautiful.”
