Independent 2023

Press Release

At Independent 2023, Corbett vs. Dempsey is pleased to present recent works by three gallery artists: Magalie Guérin, Gina Litherland, and Roscoe Mitchell. In curious, complementary ways, these three disparate artists, each from a different generation and background, are all engaged in extending and upending the visual languages of historical modernisms, from Cubism and Surrealism to multiform approaches to abstraction and figuration. Based in Marfa, Texas, Magalie Guérin (b. 1973) is best known as a painter whose works tease the line between object and abstract, finding a place of productive ambivalence in the shapes, colors, and textures of her vibrant canvases. These formal characteristics take on a different meaning as actual objects in her Raku ceramic works, which are equally beguiling and exploratory. Based in the countryside outside Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Gina Litherland (b. 1955) has spent the last four decades making exquisite Magic Realist paintings, many of them dealing with the natural world, as an extension of a historical lineage of Midwest Surrealism that includes Gertrude Abercrombie, Julia Thecla, and John Wilde. Also based in Wisconsin, Roscoe Mitchell (b. 1940) is widely regarded as one of the foremost forces in contemporary music; he was a foundational figure in the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) and co-founded the Art Ensemble of Chicago. Mitchell has been painting since the early 1960s, and his recent medium scale paintings combine a highly musical compositional sense—sectionality, vivid color, warped use of space—with a slyly humorous approach to narrative and portraiture. The booth presents two 48-inch square Mitchell canvases, one of which is a figurative work designed to be hung on any of the four possible orientations.