Mar. 24 - Apr. 23, 2005

"Untitled," pencil on paper, 2004, 6 x 8 in.

Studio View

M.Y. ART PROSPECTS is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of Lotta Pettersson, whose work was last seen at the gallery's summer group show Involution in 2004. Pettersson has continued to concentrate on monochrome drawings and paintings.

Pettersson's pencil drawings of forms that resembling insects, flowers, larvae, or embryos are all actually derived from the human form. Her delicate and complicated lines describe self-contained, autistic, and lonely abstractions.

Like a practiced calligrapher, Pettersson tunes in on a certain rhythm that keeps her strokes poised between tension and ease. When she works on straight, curved or twisted lines, edges, or bulges, she eloquently expresses different levels of feelings and emotions.

Pettersson presents her work on primed canvases or on sheets of paper that are not just support surfaces but also aesthetically significant components of her work. After drawing on them, she typically smudges, washes, or varnishes her marks until a surrounding empty space absorbs them. This process may be repeated until, in the end, her marks are too elusive to fathom. Pettersson notes, "I spend a significant part of my working process thinking and gathering energy. This energy is then released in bursts. I sacrifice and peel away until I am left with only what is necessary."

For this new exhibition, Pettersson orchestrates large (7 ft. x 5 ft.) and medium (32 in. x 32 in.) canvas paintings as well as a series of small drawings.

Born in 1969 in Karshamn, Sweden, Lotta Pettersson lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Petterson studied fine art at the Öland Academy of Visual Art, Öland, Sweden, as well as at the New York Studio School, New York. She has had solo exhibitions in New York since 1996 on venues such as Claudia Carr Gallery and CAVE.

Small Exhibition Series Vol. 5
Mar. 24 - Apr. 23, 2005

For our Small Exhibition Series (vol. 5), M.Y. ART PROSPECTS is pleased to introduce works by Kumi Machida , a Tokyo-based emerging artist.

It is easy to connect Kumi Machida's graphic figures and animals to old toys, dolls and masks. These images are deeply etched in  our collective memories, and their intimate, naive, and primitive expressions and/or gestures evoke the lonely desires and hidden passions we all experienced as children.
 
In creating her painting, Machida enjoys building each of her lines from many layers of brushstrokes that are applied after being soaked in liquid black ink.  To accomplish the process, she must take total control of each stroke so none of them will extrude and change the line. That is why her work feels different from ordinary graphic work.
Although Machida uses very few colors other than black in her work, the result is light and witty and stirs our imagination.

Kumi Machida (b. 1970) earned a BFA in Japanese-style painting (nihonga) at Tama Art University. Since 1999 she has won numerous nationwide painting competitions. She has shown at Gallery Kitamura, Nishimura Gallery and several other galleries in Tokyo, as well as venues in Frankfurt and Amsterdam. She currently lives and works in Tokyo.  Last year, her lithographs were added to the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.