PUALA McCARTNEY: Winter Magic

More Press for "A Field Guide To Snow and Ice"
Exhibition continues to March 29th, 2014

"Ms McCartney creates pictures of snow and ice, or what looks like snow and ice, and presents them as modest-format prints".—William Meyers, March 2014.

Read the full review on the Wall Street Journal website.

"While not the factual discourse implied by its title, Paula McCartney’s “Field Guide to Snow and Ice” explores the photographic illusions of snow and ice".—Ed Barnas, March 2014.

Read the full review on The New York Photo Review website.

"This guide includes images of frozen waterfalls and stalagmites, snowfalls and wildflowers, as well as other icy forms in order to explore and reinterpret natural structures and the way they can reference multiple ideas on both micro and macro levels".—Paula McCartney.

Read the full feature on the Landscape Stories website.

Ice Floe #5, 2008 © Paula McCartney

View the series on the gallery website here.

PAULA McCARTNEY: Photograph Magazine

McCartney's exhibition, A Field Guide to Snow and Ice, has been extended to March 29th. If you've not had a chance to view the work in person, we highly recommend making a visit to the gallery. Here's an excerpt from the most recent review.

Black Ice #1 and #2 (Diptych), 2011 © Paula McCartney

"All photographers invariably walk the line between truth and fiction, but few as imaginatively as Paula McCartney. the Minneapolis-based photographer's seasonably appropriate exhibition at Klompching Gallery, A Field Guide to Snow and Ice, is evidence of that".—Jordan G. Teicher.

Read the full review at photograph.

PAULA McCARTNEY: THE NEW YORKER

"For the past several years, the Minneapolis-based photographer Paula McCartney has exploited extreme weather to dazzling effect, capturing detailed portraits of natural winter elements, from frozen waterfalls to ice stalagmites to snow flurries, which have been skewed or exaggerated by rising and falling temperatures. About winter, McCartney says, “I categorize by pattern, shape, and line rather than merely by substance.” Her new series, “A Field Guide to Snow and Ice,” is on view at Klompching Gallery through February 15, 2014".—The New Yorker.

View the slide show on The New Yorker. 

CURRENT EXHIBITION

Paula McCartney
A Field Guide to Snow and Ice

We are delighted that our first exhibition for 2014, is A Field Guide to Snow and Ice. This is Paula McCartney's second solo show at the gallery. Made between 2008–2011, it's a highly anticipated follow-up to the artist's Bird Watching exhibition in 2010.

Backyard Snow #2, 2010 © Paula McCartney

Based upon the premise of the 'field guide'—a book used to accurately identify natural objects—McCartney's new photogrpahs are a visual representation of her idea of winter.

A Field Guide to Snow and Ice is a sophisticated set of photographs, contiuing her visual exploration of truth and fabrication in the photographic image and natural world. The 28 artworks that make up the exhibit, are a sequential installation of modestly-sized photographs, interweaving natural elements and constructed environments—we see snowfalls, frozen waterfalls, stalagmites and snowdrifts.

McCartney's representation of abstracted elements, reveals a nuanced ambiguity of scale and substance, causing what has been photographed, to transcend its origin. This is not an exhibition to take for granted, but one to explore carefully, particularly its use of a collapse between creative and scientific languages.

"I see winter everywhere, in every environment, in every season and categorize it by pattern, shape, and line rather than merely by substance", says Paula McCartney.

Developed over the course of several years, and demonstrating a remarkable maturity and development in her artistic practice, this is a must-see exhibition. 

The photographs are available as follows: 

Varying Sizes: 16" x 13" | 16" x 16" | 16" x 19"

Edition: 7

Medium: Archival Pigment Prints on Canson Baryta. 

Prices: $900, increasing as the editions sell.

Accompanying the exhibition is On Thin Ice, In A Blizzard—a limited edition artist book featuring a selection of photographs from A Field Guide to Snow and Ice.

See the complete series of photographs here.

The exhibition continues through to February 15, 2014. 

PAULA McCARTNEY: SCHAEFER GALLERY

Paula McCartney is currently exhibiting a selection of work from A Field Guide To Snow and Ice, at the Schaefer Gallery, (Gustavos Adolphis College, St. Peter). The exhibition continues through to December 8, 2013.

"The Explorers Club, named after the New York organization founded in 1904 to promote scientific expeditions and research, brings together the work of photographers Paula McCartney and Lex Thompson, each investigating environmentally polar opposites, from ice and snow to tropical islands. Utilizing different means of investigation, each artist asks the viewer to reconsider the way in which they perceive the photographic image in relation to the subjects it portrays".—Schaefer Gallery

 We'll be exhibiting the series at the gallery in January–February, 2014.

Black Ice I & Black Ice II ©Paula McCartney

PAULA McCARTNEY: CRITICAL MASS – TOP 50 2012

Black Ice I & Black Ice II ©Paula McCartney

from A Field Guide to Snow and Ice

Two photographs from Paula McCartney's series, A Field Guide to Snow and Ice, have been selected for the exhibition Critical Mass Top 50 2012: Color and Light. Curated by W.M. Hunt, the exhibition is showing at the Southeast Museum of Photography and is presented in partnership with PhotoLucida.

Paula McCartney says: 

"A Field Guide to Snow and Ice is my interpretation of the idea of winter. After moving from San Francisco to Minneapolis I decided to brave the elements and explore the snowy landscape, however, at times without being out in the cold. The series includes images of snowfalls and wildflowers, frozen waterfalls and stalagmites, snowdrifts and piles of gypsum sand, as well as other icy forms in order to explore and reinterpret natural structures and the way they can reference multiple ideas on both micro and macro levels. The ambiguity of scale and substance helps the subjects transcend their source. With less there becomes more. 

I see winter in every environment, in every season and categorize it by pattern, shape, and line rather than merely by substance. I am fascinated by the way the frozen waterfall at Minnehaha Falls, in my neighborhood, dialogues with the dripped accumulation of calcite from the water that formed the stalagmites in Carlsbad Caverns over millions of years. Scattered calcium sulfite deposits on a lava bed in Hawaii speak to a snowfall at night – both yearn to be the cosmos. I found the Alps in the snowplowed piles of sand along the side of the road at White Sands National Monument, my own Arctic ice floes in the ice that broke free from the harbor and floated out into Lake Superior. 

The experience of winter is central to people living in the North; we often talk about the weather. This work invites viewers to look at the winter that surrounds them in a new way, abstracted from the vast landscape-the winter of my imagination. Combining images of true snow and ice with forms reminiscent of these substances initiates conversations regarding truth in photography and recurrent forms throughout nature, as well as suggesting and encouraging a wider and more open way of looking". 

Exhibition details can be found here.

McCartney's A Field Guide to Snow and Ice will be exhibited at the Klompching Gallery during the 2013-2014 season. More information will follow soon.

PAULA McCARTNEY AWARDED McKNIGHT FELLOWSHIP

We are very proud to congratulate gallery artist, Paula McCartney, on being awarded a 2013-2014 McKnight Artist Fellowship.

The McKnight Artist Fellowships for photographers support mid-career artists, residing in Minnesota, who use photography as a primary means of creative and personal expression.

The $25,000 fellowship will enable Paula McCartney to study, reflect, experiment and explore over a twelve-month period, with the support and assistance from mnartists.org and the McKnight Foundation. Work created during the fellowship year will be presented in the form of a catalog and a public presentation about their new work.

Keep an eye out for our upcoming 2013-2014 exhibitions schedule, including new work by Paula McCartney and other gallery artists.

Read more bout the McKnight Artist Fellowships here.
See some of Paula McCartney's photographs here.

MOMA Acquisition

Paula McCartney

The Museum of Modern Art has acquired two of Paula McCartney's artist books: On Thin Ice, In A Blizzard and As If Everything You Imagined Were True.

On Thin Ice, In A Blizzard ©Paula McCartney

As If Everything You Imagined Were True ©Paula McCartney

We recommended the former in a previous blogpost as a Great Gift Idea and still have copies available in the gallery. More information about the second book can be found here.

GREAT GIFT IDEA

Gallery artist, Paula McCartney, is well known for her Bird Watching series; exhibited at the gallery in March/April 2010. She's also extremely adept with making exquisite artist books. We have a limited number of these in our inventory and think they would make a great gift for collectors of photo books. We highly recommend an in-person inspection of On Thin Ice, In A Blizzard (just released) and Bird Watching.

On Thin Ice, In A Blizzard

"Snow begins to fall, grows denser, and obliterates my view while exposing the cosmos.  Ice shifts, opening a beautiful black void.  A wondrous view as I begin my descent.  On Thin Ice, In a Blizzard is a sub-series of my project, A Field Guide to Snow and Ice.   While all of the images in the field guide are excerpts of natural landscapes—just not all snow and ice—the images in this book were constructed in the darkroom.  A winter of my imagination".—Paula McCartney

 

10 x 8 inch artist book

Extent: 36 pages, saddle stitched with a die-cut soft cover

Published: December 2011

ISBN: 978-0-615-56612-2

Edition: 500, $25 USD

Special Edition: 20 with signed print, $90 USD

Bird Watching

Bird Watching is limited to 40 signed and numbered copies, handmade by the artist. It comprises of twelve chromogenic photographs mounted on rising Stonehenge 100% cotton paper. The printed text is in Souvenir Lt BT and the written text is in the artist's handwriting on Zerkall Nideggen sand paper. The endsheets are printed on Canson Mi-Teintes flannel gray paper. The book is covered in olive and brown Iris book cloth.

Publisher: Paula McCartney & Women's Studio Workshop

ISBN: 1-893125-47-5

Binding: Hardback

Extent: 14 pages

Trim Size: 10" x 8"

Photographs: 12 color C-Types

Price: $800 USD Special Holiday Price $700 USD