In her first major solo presentation in a public London institution, UK-based painter Katy Moran presents a survey of her work from the past 10 years of her practice, curated by Ziba Ardalan, Founder/Director of Parasol unit. Although Moran’s gestural and highly evocative paintings appear to be abstract, the artist is invariably concerned with the figurative. Her ideas arise out of the process of painting as she works with the paint, consciously and subconsciously preserving and rejecting marks until she sees they are alive with the energy that she considers right.

To lose attachment to any figurative referent that may have appeared too soon in this process, she will often turn a canvas and work on it from different perspectives, painting until every part of it works. Moran’s intensely and richly powerful works are clearly executed with conscious control, skill and knowledge of painting techniques.

This exhibition will reveal Moran’s painterly development, from her early and more gestural paintings to her later works which, though more structured and detailed, often include added elements of collage and layering. Even within the modest scale of Moran’s paintings, which are often no larger than 20 inches across, she achieves a remarkably thrilling and free energy – which is added to by the figurative imagery which hides beneath her layered paint.

The show is accompanied by a full colour publication, printed in a limited edition of 500 copies, a limited edition print, along with an educational events programme of related talks, family and children workshops, a poetry workshop, and several youth projects.

Katy Moran, 15 January – 8 March 2015, Parasol Unit, Unit 14, Wharf Road, London N1 7RW.

Additional detail can be found at www.parasol-unit.org/katy-moran.

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Credits
1. Katy Moran, Rock Face with a Face (detail), 2013. Collection of Carole Server and Oliver Frankel.