Stephanie McMahon

PROFESSOR OF PAINTING AND DRAWING

Stephanie McMahon Stephanie McMahon’s paintings extract and distill her observations and perceptions of a particular environment while presenting the possibilities of visual experience and abstraction. Weaving in and out of referential forms, colors and elemental shapes, she allows for both intuitive and calculated responses. Gestural brushstrokes impart physicality yet glideweightlessly over smooth surfaces as figure ground relationships oscillate and conflate. Geometric structures and sharp edges provide a counterpoint to the immediacy and speed of the gesture. Her process creates an active space for exploration that connects the present activity of painting to a previous experience.

The paintings are made with thin, translucent layers of oil paint on a smooth oil ground surface allowing each brushstroke to have a vibrant and luminous physical presence with very little material body. McMahon embraces the immediate and sensual qualities of the gestural brushstroke. Veils of color are dissolved with solvent, causing layers underneath to push forward. Fluid marks are often contained within a shape or stopped by a sharp edge in contrast to the quick gesture, revealing both transitory and measured time.

Stephanie McMahon (b.1976, Rochester, NY) lives and works in Alfred, NY. McMahon earned an MFA from The University of Texas at Austin and a BFA from The School of Art and Design at Alfred University. She has been included in exhibitions at Galerie plan. d., Düsseldorf, Germany; Drawer, NY; Heaven Gallery, Chicago, IL; Northern Illinois Art Museum; Tang Contemporary, Beijing, China; Gravity Gallery, North Adams, MA; and Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, NY among others. McMahon is recipient of the New York State Council on the Arts Tri- County Artist Grant, Memorial Art Gallery Award of Excellence and the Constance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts Individual Artist Grant. She recently completed an artist residency at Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris and at International Center for the Arts, Monte Castello di Vibio, Italy. She also taught as a guest Professor at Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, Lu Xun Academy of Fine Arts in Shenyang and Northeast Normal University in Changchun, China. Her work has been reviewed and published in Art Maze Magazine, The Boston Globe, Hyperallergic, and New American Paintings Blog and Magazine, among others. McMahon is a co-founder of the Alfred/Düsseldorf MFA in Painting program.