Mara Held: Gates of Cilicia

February 06 - May 15,2021

From the gallery: "McClain Gallery is delighted to announce an exhibition of new works by Mara Held (b. 1954, New York). Gates of Cilicia presents gouache and egg tempera works on paper from the artist’s latest series, ‘Straight Lines.’ Also on view are several recent paintings on linen that evidence the elegant tension of a practice that pulls inspiration from the convergence of ancient thought to modern physics. This is Held’s third solo exhibition at McClain Gallery. Held’s interest in ancient cultures, specifically the language and artmaking of early man, led to the exhibition’s title: Gates of Cilicia. The phrase refers to a pass in the high mountains of Taurus in present-day Turkey that has served as an essential gateway between the east and the west for millennia. This passage was used by the earliest human civilizations of the Fertile Crescent, eventually developing into a significant cultural nexus point. Held sees the Gates of Cilicia both as a gateway through landscapes and epochs and as a symbolic magical space whence humans created civilization. Held is fascinated by cave paintings by early man, which she considers to be sacred paintings. These ancient artists would travel deep into the earth with no light source other than a moss lantern to create paintings of animals and abstract images including meditative symbols such as spirals and grids on cave walls. Held often uses similar shapes and patterns with the understand-ing that their presence in human art-making is a pervasive constant. For Held, the continuity transcends the cognitive choices involved with creating a composition on paper or a record on a cave wall. As Held puts it: “The cave wall represents a membrane into another dimension... [they become] portals to the imagination.” Mara Held’s layered abstractions and organic curvilinear forms have, as critic Ken Johnson once described, “a lithe, improvisational fluidity, each one an adventure for the senses and the imagination.” Typically working in egg tem-pera, Held adjusts her practice when traveling, focusing on less labored–yet equally lyrical– small works on paper inspired by the locale she is visiting. While Covid-19 pandemic’s outset hampered Held’s wanderlust, quarantine provided an opportunity for change in her studio. Just as rulemaking can breed creativity, Held’s interest in the woven, primitive mark-making, and the grid, became the genesis of a new set of rules where she would paint using only straight lines. The rigidity of Held’s ‘Straight Lines’ runs parallel with the pandemic’s new rigid lifestyle. Quoting Henri Matisse, Held states: “Don’t wait for inspiration. It comes while one is working.” While exploring this new set of rules, Held was intrigued by a feather-like el-ement in one of these early straight line pieces that became a springboard for this current body of work. As the series quickly developed, Held began in-corporating gouache with egg tempera, and the scale of her works on paper grew. She first starts by penciling in a ground resembling a grid, or a warp and weft, to act as an anchor for these improvisational pieces. The results are colorful and visually satisfying images that exemplify Held’s skill as a painter and dedication to her craft."

On View: February 06, 2021 | 1-5 pm
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McClain Gallery 2242 Richmond Avenue
Houston, TX 77098
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