Melissa McGill: CURRENTS

TOTAH presents CURRENTS, an exhibition of recent works by artist Melissa McGill, on view from September 8, 2022 through October 15, 2022. This is McGill’s second solo exhibition with the gallery.

Melissa McGill’s understanding of our symbiotic relationship with water and the environment runs through her collaborative public art works: Constellation, Red Regatta, and In the Waves. In the more intimate works on view in CURRENTS, water is as much a vital substance as an expressive language—be this articulated through wind, waves, shifting light and shadow, or the flow of time itself.

Throughout CURRENTS, water’s various gestures are expressed using a range of materials. McGill draws us into water’s inclinations, engaging them by way of sight, sound, reflections, and movement. Her sculptural glass installation transmutes a series of two-dimensional, photographic surfaces into an immersive environment, where the subtle play of light and translucency recalls the changing yet constant nature of the tides. Similarly, McGill’s Box of Waves series transmits movements in time across different elements, expressing our ongoing dialogue with nature. To open the box is like opening a portal into a moment-in-process—one marked by the perpetual reciprocity of wind and water.

McGill describes the world on its own terms, showing how the water inside us speaks to the water surrounding us. The calligraphic evidence she observes in nature reminds us how our primordial mode of being is without “edges,” without definite separateness between things, but exists in a non-linear, circular time that pervades the planet. Inviting us to become more porous—to move within and like water—McGill recreates an environing script that doesn’t rely on traditional language so much as it ciphers the essence of translation, conversation, collaboration, and symbiosis.

Melissa McGill (born Rhode Island, 1969) is an interdisciplinary artist who creates large-scale, site-specific art projects and works in a variety of media, including photography, painting, drawing, sculpture, sound, light and immersive installation. Her work connects viewers to overlooked histories, exploring the conversation between the visible and invisible, heightening awareness of our surroundings. McGill regularly turns to waterways for inspiration, research and artistic collaboration. Her work is currently on view alongside Canaletto in a two-person exhibition at The Lightbox, Woking, UK. McGill has been exhibiting her artwork nationally and internationally since 1991, including solo exhibitions at White Cube, London; Power House, Memphis; Palazzo Capello, Venice; CRG Gallery, New York; and MANA Contemporary, NJ. A recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts, Arts Work Grant, she has led visiting artist workshops at Dia:Beacon and The Storm King Art Center, NY. She is a graduate of The Rhode Island School of Design, and presently lives and works in Beacon, New York.

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