Anthony Meier

Anthony Meier is pleased to present "Something About Shapes", Kate Shepherd’s sixth solo exhibition at the gallery which will feature never-before-seen watercolors and large-scale wall paintings, all of which have been created in dialogue with their environment. On view from 7 April - 19 May 2023, this is the gallery’s second exhibition at its new flagship location in Mill Valley, California. As the first exhibition dedicated to Shepherd’s ongoing series of watercolors, "Something About Shapes" reflects the artist’s time-honored practice of geometrical abstraction that teases out subtle relationships between form and space which might otherwise remain overlooked. Her distinct visual lexicon, generated by superimposing a delicate matrix of chromatic fields to evoke the illusion of three-dimensionality, characterizes both bodies of work, the watercolors and wall drawings alike. Taking as their inspiration the trap doors found along city sidewalks and folding walls, the series of watercolors on view all reflect a certain architectural quality in their arrangement of overlapping and intersecting planes—alluding to stagnated movement and different points of view, exemplified by "Violet, Three Overlapping Planes #77" (2022), a door standing ajar, as in "Brown, Open Door with Plane, #65", (2022), or a wall partition bisecting an otherwise undelineated space, such as in "Black, Open Folded Wall, #43" (2022). The play of light and shadow that results from Shepherd’s delicate manipulation of color in these intimately-scaled monochromatic works share a certain kinship with the literal play of light and shadow that she engages in her large-scale wall paintings. Though similarly drawing upon the planar relationship as a sort of formal conceit, the wall paintings establish a far more direct spatial discourse, compelling a consideration of the viewer’s phenomenological relationship both inside and outside of the work. The viewer is engaged with a larger-than-life figural and gestural reference, suggesting both gravity and motion.

On view from 31 January through 17 March 2023, "In the Shadow of Mt. Tam" will feature historic works by artists such as Etel Adnan, who spent a finite but critically important time in Marin County––and who eventually went on to establish themselves within the cannons of art history. Artists include Etel Adnan, JB Blunk, Jess Collins, Jay DeFeo, Robert Duncan, Gordon Onslow Ford, Luchita Hurtado, David Ireland, Lee Mullican, Bruce Nauman, Wolfgang Paalen, Barbara Stauffacher Solomon, Lawrence Weiner, William T. Wiley, and Rick Yoshimoto. The exhibition will thread together the allure of Marin’s distinctive natural environment and Mt. Tam itself, as well as the impact of community and place on these artist’s burgeoning practices. The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalog featuring an essay by art historian Michael Auping.