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Katy Moran

Katy Moran’s abstract paintings conjure atmospheres – at times suggestive of landscape, still life, or figuration – through her exploration of form, gesture, colour and surface. While the legacy of Expressionism is evident in her painterly language, Moran’s work is firmly grounded in the materiality of painting as object. Her work has methodically concentrated on what kinds of alchemy can be offered up in the pre-existing surface of the readymade - found paintings, frames, or collage - as it combines with her own mark-making. More often than not, these readymades are framed paintings, which Moran has reworked through her own vocabulary of gestural improvisations – smears, drips, or careful brushstrokes, resisting any form of figuration that may have pre-existed on these supports. As such, Moran’s works constitute a refusal of the process of recognition: kitsch pastoral scenes become abstract vistas, their title plaques coyly redacted. Moran’s liquid abstractions use painting itself as a fluid and ever metamorphosing medium, where desire and unconscious processes can reign free. “I follow whatever idea reveals itself, knowing I will abandon it at any stage if something better comes along,” she has stated. This palimpsestic approach is rendered with brushstrokes that overlap themselves and evolve continually, traversing a vast terrain of moods in their radiant and searching vocabulary of forms, textures and colours.

Katy Moran was born in Manchester in 1975, and lives and works in Hertfordshire. Her work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Sperone Westwater, New York (2023); Modern Art, London (2022); Parasol Unit Foundation for Contemporary Art, London (2015); the Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin (2013); the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus (2010); Tate St Ives (2009); and the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (2008). She has shown in recent group exhibitions at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (2018); Aspen Art Museum (2015); the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2013); and SFMOMA, San Francisco (2012). Moran’s paintings are held by the Pinault Collection, Paris/Venice; the Rubell Museum, Miami; Sammlung Goetz, Munich; SFMOMA, San Francisco; and Tate, London.

Press
Biography
300 sun days, Modern Art, 2022
FB Beverly, 2023
acrylic and emulsion on found painting 47 x 57 cm 18 1/2 x 22 1/2 in
1/2
e and g, 2022
acrylic on found painting 65 x 54.5 cm 25 5/8 x 21 1/2 in
1/4
More Me 1, 2022
acrylic on found painting 57 x 74 cm 22 1/2 x 29 1/8 in
1/2
Vortex, 2022
acrylic on found painting 86 x 60.5 cm 33 7/8 x 23 7/8 in
1/2
Lady that, 2021
acrylic on found painting 63.5 x 84 cms 25 x 33 7/100 inches
1/2
rest #refresh, 2021
acrylic on found painting 48 x 53 cm 18 7/8 x 20 7/8 ins
1/2
Magritte mornings 5, 2019
acrylic on canvas in found frame 64.2 x 74.5 cm 25 1/4 x 29 3/8 ins
1/4
on the way to somewhere else, 2018
acrylic on found frame, 85.5 x 41 cm 33 5/8 x 16 1/8 ins
1/3
primal cat, 2011
acrylic and fabric on board 53 x 43 cm 20 7/8 x 16 7/8 ins
1/2
Slide out of View, 2011
acrylic, glass, fabric, wood, 69 x 61.5 x 8.5 cm 27 1/8 x 24 1/4 x 3 3/8 ins
1/2
In the pits, 2009
acrylic and collage on canvas 38x46 cm, 15x18.1 ins (MA-MORAK-00299)
1/2
Just Turn Around, I'm Gone Again, 2009
acrylic on canvas, 46x38 cm, 18.1x15 ins
Rinky's, 2008
acrylic on wood panel 40 x 50 x 3.5 cm 15 3/4 x 19 3/4 x 1 3/8 ins
Wasabi without Tears, 2007
acrylic on canvas 38x46 cm, 15x18.1 ins
Captain Beaky and his Band II, 2006
acrylic on canvas 60x50x3 cm, 23.6x19.7x1.2 ins
Beaches and moonbeam, 2022 (detail)
Short legs...I'm coming, 2008

Press

Brooklyn Rail1 November 2023
Frieze9 April 2019
Anomie7 January 2018
Artforum1 March 2014
Vault1 April 2013

Biography

Katy Moran

Born in Manchester, 1975 Lives and works in Hertfordshire

Solo Exhibitions

2023
How to paint like an athlete
Sperone Westwater, New York, NY, USA
More Me
Station Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2022
300 sun days
Modern Art, London
2020
Recent paintings
Modern Art, London
2019
I want to live in the afternoon of that day
Sperone Westwater, New York, NY, USA
2017
Modern Art
London
2015
Andrea Rosen Gallery
New York, NY, USA
2013
Modern Art
London
Douglas Hyde Gallery
Dublin, Ireland
2011
Andrea Rosen Gallery
New York, NY, USA
2010
Wexner Centre for the Arts
Columbus, OH, USA
2009
Modern Art
London
Galleria Il Capricorno
Venice, Italy
Anthony Meier Fine Arts
San Francisco, CA, USA
Andrea Rosen Gallery
New York, NY, USA
2006
Modern Art
London
Grusenmeyer Art Gallery
Deurie, France

Group Exhibitions

2022
Sabrina
curated by Russel Tovey, Sim Smith, London
By a Thread
Aspara Studios, London
Open Storage: 25 Years of Collectingcurated by Allan Schwartzman, The Warehouse, Dallas, TX, USA
Abstraction Now
The Corn Hall, Diss
2021
To Situations New
Lamb Arts, London
WOOD WORKS: Raw, Cut, Carved, Covered
Sperone Westwater, New York, NY, USA
Abstrakt
Wentrup Gallery, Berlin, Germany
2018
Summer Exhibition
Modern Art, London
Surface Work
Victoria Miro, London
Virginia Woolf: An Exhibition Inspired by Her WritingsTate St Ives, Cornwall; travelling to Pallant House Gallery, Chichester; Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
2016
Theories of Modern Art
Modern Art, London
2015
Intimacy in Discourse: Reasonable and Unreasonable Sized Paintings
Mana Contemporary, Jersey City, NJ, USA
One Day, Something Happens: Paintings of People. A selection by Jennifer Higgie from The Arts Council Collection (England)
Leeds Art Gallery, Leeds; Highlanes Gallery, Drogheda, Ireland; The Atkinson, Southport; Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne
Second Chances
Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, CO, USA
2014
Somos Libres II. Works from the Mario Testino Collection
Pinacoteca Gianni e Marella, Agnelli, Turin, Italy
2013
A Personal Choice
by Bruna Aickelin, Il Capricorno, Venice, Italy
Lloyds Club
London
Painter Painter
Walker Art Gallery, Minneapolis, MN, USA
Inevitable Figuration
Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Prato, Italy
2011
Magasin - Centre National d'Art Contemporain
Grenoble, France
Creating the New Century: Contemporary Art from the Dicke Collection
The Dayton Art Institute, OH, USA
2010
Tasters’ Choice
Stephen Friedman, London
Le Tableau
Cheim & Read, New York, NY, USA
Feint Art
Kunstverein Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany
We’re Moving
Royal College of Art, London
Surface Reality
Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle
2008
Art Now: Strange SolutionTate Britain, London
Selections from the Ovitz Family Collection
ASU Art Museum, Tempe, AZ, USA
2007
Dining Room Show
Andrea Rosen Gallery, Amagansett, Long Island, NY, USA
Old Space New Space
Gagosian Gallery, New York, NY, USA
The Painting Show: Slipping Abstraction
Mead Gallery, Warwick Arts Centre, Warwick
Salon Nouveau
Galerie Engholm Engelhorn, Vienna, Austria
2006
A Broken Arm
curated by Mari Spirito, 303 Gallery, New York, NY, USA
New Contemporaries 2006London and Liverpool (touring)
Young Painters
Grusenmeyer, Belgium
Primetime Painting: Young Art from London, Primetime Painting: Young Art from London
Galerie Seitz, Berlin, Germany
2005
Art Futures
Bloomberg, London (Art Review magazine prize)
Peculiar Encounters
Ec Artspace, London
London Kicks
The Wooster Project, New York, NY, USA
Morpho Eugenia
San Marino, Italy
Royal College of Art
London
Man Drawing Prize
Royal College of Art, London

Selected Collections

Arts Council Collection
London
David Roberts Art Foundation
London
Government Art Collection
London
Pinault Collection
Venice, Italy
Royal College of Art
London
Rubell Family Collection
Miami, FL, USA
Sammlung Goetz
Munich, Germany
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
San Francisco, CA, USA
Tate
London
Walker Art Center
Minneapolis, MN, USA
Zabludowicz Collection
London