Along the Way
Kathryn Markel Fine Arts
May. 12, 2024 - Jun. 18, 2016
Kathryn Markel Fine Arts is pleased to present Along the Way, an exhibition of new work by Josette Urso.
Josette Urso’s paintings are driven by a sense of urgency to record a fleeting moment. She translates the sensory experience of inhabiting a space through her manipulation of the paint, activating the surface in an energetic, tactile representation of her perception. All of the elements of place from every direction are captured in one plane, exploring its forms, light, and energy.
Urso’s surroundings serve more as a jumping-off point rather than subject, the details of her initial inspiration becoming more and more abstracted as the piece progresses. Urso’s primary fascination is the edge of where the outside meets the inside, a separation yet melding of the natural and man-made worlds. Her work has also become more physical and tactile, her layers of paint building up in peaks and waves throughout the surface.
Urso begins her paintings with big sweeps of color, working in the direction of the flow of the space she is inspired by. Constantly turning her canvas as she works, Urso revels in the unknown and the gradual discovery of the piece as it reveals itself. Guided by intuition, she continues to build up the surface from large, bold shapes to a cacophony of color, pattern, and form. The juxtaposition of intricate detailing with swaths of color leads the eye on a constant journey around the canvas, the sense of exploration paralleling its creation.