Madelin Coit + Margaret Fitzgerald

March 16 - April 13, 2024

Opening Reception: Saturday, March 16, 4-6 pm  





Madelin Coit, Abgeshleppt, cobalt neon, 60 x 72 in.

 

Margaret Fitzgerald, She Said
acrylic, oil and pencil on canvas, 90 x 80 in.

The work of Madelin Coit and Margaret Fitzgerald presented in this exhibition draw on influences that reference to the urban language such as graffitis and neon lights. City life has long inspired poets and artists. Author Tom Chivers, who published London Clay: Journeys in the Deep City in 2021, writes “The city resists nostalgic forms of poetry that have been handed down to us in various traditions. There is this energy and aggression and speed in a city that lends itself to poetry.”

Fitzgerald paintings on large canvas and Coit wordplay neons remind us of the singular beauty of space where one engages in visual dialogue with their community. 

Fitzgerald's scrawls patterns and intuitive swaths of color on her canvases depict an urgency in her gestural abstractions. "I'm interested in the language of graffiti and its inherent urgency to speak out about what’s going on. I’m interested in popular culture juxtaposed with the natural order of nature and its struggle to survive," she says.

Madelin Coit has worked in performance and video, painted exquisite lyrical abstractions, and played with Duchampian puns in neon. In her book Before and After Language: The Art of Madelin Coit, Jennie Hirsh writes “throughout her neon works, literal and metaphorical illumination converge, as Coit pushes through puns, wordplay, and syntactical dances that ultimately deliver a form of deeper consciousness along with spiritual enlightenment.”

Madelin Coit received her BFA from the University of Connecticut. Her career as a professional interdisciplinary artist spans fifty years and has produced numerous series in media including sprayed-oil paintings, drawings, prints, sculpture, installation, video projection, writing, performance, and neon pieces.  Her work has been exhibited nationally at the Los Angeles County Museum, the Hammer Museum, the San Antonio Art Institute, the Anchorage Museum of Art, SITE Santa Fe, and the New Mexico Museum of Art.

Margaret Fitzgerald was born in London, England. She grew up in Japan and the United States. She studied fine art and art history in New York City at the School of Visual Arts and the Art Students League. She also studied at the Instituto Allende in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico and received a Bachelor of Fine Art from the University of New Mexico. Fitzgerald has enjoyed solo shows in New York City, San Francisco and New Mexico. Her work is in private and corporate collections across the United States and abroad.