ANDREW RAFACZ opens the fall 2017 season with an exhibition presenting the work of three notable New York-based painters: Morgan Blair, Kate Klingbeil, and Caroline Larsen. The exhibition continues through Saturday, October 28, 2017.

We present three painters who each work to upend traditional notions of their chosen trope (portrait, landscape, still life) through the use of unique techniques and an emphasis on vibrant color and dynamic compositions.

Morgan Blair uses an airbrush application and sand to generate her layered, shifting paintings that find a space between abstraction and representation. She debuts a new work with an anthropomorphic cat-like figure adrift in a colorful, morphing landscape of text and contemporary cultural symbols.

Kate Klingbeil mixes acrylic and flashe (as well as oil, pumice, and ceramic in other recent works) to create the lush, sculptural surfaces of her substantial narrative compositions. She presents a new large-scale tableau of numerous figures bathing while angels fly overhead, referencing Classical painting with a contemporary conceit.

Caroline Larsen uses paint sculpturally to create her idiosyncratic still lifes. Intricately laying long strands of oil paint next to each other, the final textured form approximates the materiality of weaving. She debuts a new painting of abundant tropical foliage, densely arranged and nearly bursting from the surface.

MORGAN BLAIR (American, b. 1986) lives and works in Queens, NY. She received her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2008. She currently has a solo exhibition TL;DR at The Hole, New York. Recent group exhibitions include extra-cultural surprise, Shane Campbell Gallery, Chicago, IL (2017); Unfamiliar Again: Contemporary Women Abstractionists, The Newcomb Museum, New Orleans, LA (2017); Small Enough To Keep Me Happy, Big Enough To Keep Me Occupied, Eighteen, Copenhagen, Denmark (2017), and Post Analog Painting II, The Hole, New York (2017).

KATE KLINGBEIL (American, b. 1990) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She received her BFA from California College of the Arts in 2012. Her first solo exhibition, THICK, at CRUSH curatorial opened in 2017 in Chelsea, NY. Group exhibitions include Faces and Vases (2016) Royal NoneSuch Gallery, Oakland; Sad Intention, LvL3, Chicago (2017), Muscle Memory, Athen B. Gallery, Oakland (2017), and FIGURED OUT!, Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Chicago (2017).

CAROLINE LARSEN (Canadian, b. 1980) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She received her BFA from The University of Waterloo (Ontario, Canada) in 2004 and her MFA from the Pratt Institute in 2015. Recent solo exhibitions include Kabloom!, The Hole NYC (2016), Fruits and Foliage, Wave Hill Botanical Gardens, Bronx, NY (2017). Solo projects include Mirror/Mirror at Spring Break Art Fair and Fresh Paint Art Fair in Tel Aviv. Group exhibitions include No Commission, Berlin, Germany and Miami, Florida, curated by Swizz Beats (2017), The Veterans, Dio Horia, Mykonos, Greece (2017) and Post Analog Painting II, The Hole NYC (2017).

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Tags: Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Caroline Larsen, Chicago, Kate Klingbeil, Morgan Blair, near west side