BU2020_Catalogue_ForEvan_April28_Pages

MAGGIE KING
Garden Party, 2019. Mixed media on panel. 23.25 × 84 in.
Visual phenomena like space, color, light, and material have endless potential
to translate material sensations into psychological states. I do everything I can in
my studio to harness the inherent vitality of the materiality of painting. I use a
variety of reflective and matte materials: glass beads, interference paint, shiny
stained wood, enamel, pouring medium, homemade gesso, and cellulose paint.
Light activates surfaces and creates shifting color and spatial relationships. This
retinal flux imbues the objects with a kind of otherworldly agency; they act as
thresholds from one space to another space. This kind of material animation can
mirror the spectacle of femininity, the complex performance of gender, and act
as a space to investigate huge questions about perception and what it means to
be human and have a body.
These spaces are feminine spaces. They track my relationship with notions of
mystical femininity and how these notions intersect with fetishized gender
roles. Through the creation of personal codes for fetishized gender roles, I create
new notions of mystical femininity that re-instill the feminine body, and my
body with agency.
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Painting