Pyrogenesis: Abigail McCallum

MEY is pleased to present Pyrogenesis, a solo exhibition of abstract paintings by San Francisco based artist Abigail McCallum. This is the artist’s first exhibition in Los Angeles. 

Channeling the rhythms of classical and punk music, the luminosity of religious paintings, and the lushness of botanical imagery, Abigail creates ethereal visualizations of human nature. Rich and atmospheric, the paintings of Pyrogenesis invite viewers to float between the realms of abstraction and realism, movement and stasis, and the earthly and the celestial. 

Distilling her background as a classically trained ballerina into her artistic practice, Abigail creates visual rhapsodies that oscillate between improvisation and deliberation. The artist approaches her paintings with raw spontaneity by laying down an improvised base layer of oil paint upon which she builds. Her painterly approach is a method of call and response, in which visual problems arise and resolve as her paintings unfold. Destruction is as much a part of her process as creation; in works such as Ollonum, paint is broken down and built up through the use of sandpaper, putty knives, and other carving tools. 

Entitled Pyrogenesis, the exhibition’s title is a nod to both the forces of nature and the religious paintings that informed its contents. In pieces like Teardrop, veils of pearly alabaster float amongst feathery brushstrokes of rich burgundy and earthy cognac, thereby conjuring an environment that is as aquatic as it is aflame. Abigail’s abstractions function as mirrors for the chaos of the natural realm; like gravitational, electromagnetic, and nuclear forces in the physical world, the elements of Abigail’s paintings push into and against one another in order to generate a delicate state of balance. Mother's Seder and Crux Ansata nominally allude to religious practices and symbols, while the latter also possesses the chiaroscuro of Caravaggio’s religious masterworks. Also influenced by the expressionist works of Chaim Soutine and the wildlife depictions of Robert Gilmore, Abigail brings techniques traditionally associated with realism into abstraction. In Pyrogenesis, the drama of the Baroque blends with the calm of Romanticism to create a striking form of contemporary abstraction.