Material Girls
Katy Richards '11 + Nikki Woods '12

This summer, the walls of HEDGE Gallery will be filled with luscious color and the intimate dialogues that are formed between paintings by Katy Richards and Nikki Woods, both graduates from the Cleveland Institute of Art.

The show title, “Material Girls” refers to the artists’ use of paint as a thick, gestural material and to the feminist attributes in their subject matter.

Using paint to serve as both a means of depiction and expression, Nikki Woods creates highly decorative and decadent landscapes, objects, and centerpieces. A once domestic object becomes infused with new meaning; paint and image become expressions of desire.

Katy Richard’s work is about the corporeal body, blurring distinctions between the interior and exterior to arrive at a form that is raw and exposed. Richards states, “I take pleasure in the sensual aspects of painting, searching through its materiality, slipping between paint and form to arrive at an image."

Richards and Woods will have over 40 recent paintings on view at HEDGE Gallery this summer.

"Material Girls" Opening Reception is June 19, 5-9pm, during the 78th Street Studios' Third Friday Event. The show will be on view through September 4.

Above images: "Wrapped In Ribbons" Nikki Woods/ "Between Mother's Cushions" Katy Richards