Sean Kelly is delighted to announce HumidGray and ShadowLake, Janaina Tschäpe’s first exhibition since joining the gallery. Comprising large-scale paintings and watercolors, these evocative compositions demonstrate Tschäpe’s assured approach and deft ability to handle delicate media while painting on an impressive scale. There will be an opening reception on Thursday, October 25 from 6-8pm. The artist will be present.
Tschäpe explains that her compositions always begin with, “an idea of color developing into a landscape,” which is laid down on the canvas in casein, a water-soluble paint derived from milk proteins. The drawing that follows is imposed in watercolor pencil on the surface of the more “traditional landscape” becoming, in her words, like “cartography,” a system of mark-making that she likens to “telling the story of that day.” All of the works in this exhibition reveal how Tschäpe has clearly mastered the technical and aesthetic demands of translating the delicacy and precision of her drawing practice into the challenging scale of her new paintings. As she describes it, “the drawing is a constant compositional element; it is very controlled [and] precise. The gesture may be light, a caress versus a more aggressive punctuation, [but] it becomes a bit like language: an alphabet of different marks of different length.”

Opening Reception: Thursday, October 25, 6-8pm
The artist will be present.

mpefm USA art press release