A Calm Spectrum of Intensity
The Work of M. Katherine Hurley at 5th Street Gallery
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M. Katherine Hurley. Winter, 2009. Pastel, 7.5x11.5in. Photo Courtesy of the artist.
M. Katherine Hurley. Winter, 2009. Pastel, 7.5x11.5in. Photo Courtesy of the artist.
The glowing pastel landscapes of M. Katherine Hurley at 5th Street Gallery, corner of Fifth and Race, suggest moments in time when the precarious balance of nature is at rest. Something may have just happened, or be about to happen, but here is a perfect instant in between.
Hurley creates these sanctuaries for the eye with what might be a limited palette but in her hands is endlessly varied. "I have maybe thousands of pastels but use perhaps 100,"she says. "In layering, I want the underneath to peek through, the eye will blend them."Her colors range through delicate greens, yellow-reds turning orange, blues that deepen into purple. Hurley's works at 5th Street Gallery, an artists' cooperative showcasing a full spectrum from local artists, appear at first glance to be almost abstract horizontal layers of rich color. They settle into landscapes, the only verticals an occasional tree trunk or the dim outline of a distant barn. The calm elicited by horizontals is countered by Hurley's exciting colors, a rewarding schism.
"I now work to let the layers, the process show through,"she says, describing a change in technique. Asked if art is a continual learning experience, she replies "Absolutely." As an artist who works in oils as well as pastels, she finds "a huge difference between the two mediums. Pastel is dry, so I'm able to work very rapidly, while oil is wet, conducive to soft edges, and takes more time. Often, looking at a subject, I can feel in myself which medium I want to use. If there's architecture, barns for instance—I love barns—I need the separate edges pastels can produce."
M. Katherine Hurley. December Dawn, 2009. Pastel, 14.5x21in. Photo Courtesy of the artist.
Hurley grew up in small town Ohio with rural landscapes near at hand. She came to Cincinnati to attend The College of Mt. St. Joseph, where she received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1974, and after graduation continued studies at the Art Academy of Cincinnati. As a working artist in Cincinnati for over thirty years, she has seen the local art scene grow and develop. Currently the art market here, as everywhere, is flinching from the economic situation but it hasn't disappeared.
"We try to educate the collecting public that it's not necessary to go to New York or Santa Fe...there's everything you could want in our own backyard. Cincinnati has an incredible history of all the arts."
M. Katherine Hurley. Alleghany Passage, 2009. Pastel, 14.5x21.5in. Photo Courtesy of the artist.
That history continues in places like the Pendleton Arts Center in Over-the-Rhine, where Hurley has had a studio for seventeen years. Asked if she only did country landscapes in that very city location, she said she periodically works with the splendid view from her seventh floor studio window. "Looking out I can see Music Hall, steeples overlapping in front of me, the German architecture, a view all the way to Western Hills."
Hurley is a teacher as well as artist, and finds that "I learn so much from the people I teach. [Teaching] helps with problem solving and provides discipline for my own work. The students are more experimental, and they also learn from each other."She prefers to teach workshops rather than semester classes, and will hold a three-day workshop in May in New Richmond, OH, where the river view is part of the landscape. Planned for the weekend of May 14-16, the workshop will help participants "learn to express the mystery of the landscape with shapes, values, color, and lost and found edges. "Lost and found edges are something Hurley knows all about.
M. Katherine Hurley. Autumn, 2009. Pastel, 7.5x11.5in. Photo Courtesy of the artist.
Some of her pastels at 5th Street Gallery have defined shapes, while others blend seamlessly from one thing to another. Allegheny Pass, one of three large (14.5x21 inches) works is specific in its subject matter while the other work that size, December Dawn, does everything by suggestion. Given the warmth of Hurley's chosen colors, it's remarkable that the light in December Dawn is so clearly a winter light.
Her ability to convey seasonal change is the heart of Four Seasons, a set of four works at 5th Street Gallery. Each pastel is 7.5x11 inches and shows the same landscape at a different period of the year. A trio of works, As the Sun Rises, also shows a recurrent landscape, this one at progressive moments during sunrise.
Art critic Daniel Brown has written perceptively about M. Katherine Hurley's work, which he says "is the search for essences, not likenesses. "Likenesses we can see out the window. Essences are distilled by the artist's eye."
