Fall 2018, Volume 25

Photos by Kristin Malin

For Alternate Non-Flash Gallery


List of images:

 1 "Buck Moon, First Night"
 2 "Foggy Moon Over Fox"
 3 "Full Moon Blue Moon"
 4 "Full Moon Over Lake Pontchartrain"
 5 "Full Moon Over New Orleans"
 6 "November Full Moon Over Fox Island"
 7 "Strawberry Moon"
 8 "Sturgeon Moon over the Ocean"
 9 "Sturgeon Moon.jpg"
10 "Two Hours Before the Lunar Eclipse"
11 "One Hour Before the Lunar Eclipse"
12 "Total Lunar Eclipse 2015"


Artist Statement:

The Lure of the Moon

Part of my studio practice is to paint directly on-site. My paintings are concise, intuitively rendered responses to carefully observed events. With the passage of time, light and other elements change, which are incorporated as they happen, and the images become elongated moments.  Painting from observation is an effort to capture the dynamics of fleeting moments and requires efficiency of brushstrokes, with forms defined by shape and the path of the brush, and each stroke is important to the composition of the painting and the articulation of the subject matter.  It’s a spontaneous, honest and genuine response to painting phenomena of nature:  “This is what I saw.” 
 
I am in the midst of a series of full moons, beginning with the full lunar eclipse on 9/28/15, painted from the beach near my studio in Georgetown.   They are small “captures” of these moon events, and I record simultaneous astronomical events occurring in the sky.  I am harvesting the energy of the moon.

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Why the moon: on September 28, 2015, those of us in North America were treated to a full lunar eclipse, which only occurs at a full moon, and if the moon passes through the earth’s umbral shadow, where the earth blocks all direct sunlight reaching the moon.  I live near the Atlantic Ocean, where light pollution is mostly non-existent, and the lunar eclipse was a sight to behold at the beach along the Maine coast.  The moment the eclipse occurred, the sky became a blue-black dark as the moon became orange, and millions of stars and the Milky Way were visible, more than I have ever seen.  This astronomical event inspired me to begin my current obsession with painting the full moon each month. 

For visual artists, especially those who maintain a plein air practice, nighttime painting is the absence of light, which is generally needed for the optics of color.  The quality of light is subtle and requires close looking and observation to realize the tone, value and color.  Painting at night is finding forms, edges and shapes in obscure light, and discerning color without the full spectrum of (sun)light.  At times, the moon rises as the sun sets, with a conflict between the waning full-spectrum light of the sun as the white, low spectrum of the moon’s light begins to take over the sky. The light in the night sky is changed by the angle of the moon and the earth, the temperature and humidity, and light pollution from the land. Painting at night is quiet, solitary, and peaceful.  #nosunscreenrequired 

 

About the Artist:
After receiving a BFA in painting from Louisiana State University, Kristin Malin attended the New York Studio School and received an MFA in painting from Columbia University. In New York, Malin exhibited in Lower East Side galleries, received an Artist’s Space grant, and was a finalist for the Bronx Museum of the Arts Artists in the Marketplace program. After moving to Maine, Malin exhibited at the O’Farrell Gallery, Caldbeck Gallery, the Center for Maine Contemporary Art, LC Bates Museum, the State House, Atrium Gallery, the Emory Arts Center at the University of Maine, exhibition murals for the Maine Maritime Museum and the Auburn Art Wall, and she was a visiting artist in local schools. She participated in an artist residency on Governors Island in New York City, at the Catskill Center for Conservation and Development and was nominated for the Joan Mitchell Foundation Award.  She has presented her work at Pecha Kucha events in Rockland, Portland, and Kennebunk and successfully raised funds to print a reproduction of a painting from her residency on Governors Island, a 19 panel folding panorama of Lower Manhattan from Governors Island, which is in the library at Printed Matter in New York and the permanent collection at Franklin Marshall College.  Malin co-curated The Piano Roll Project, in conjunction with Museum L/A, in which thirty artists from Maine and New York were invited to alter a player piano roll. Her work has been included in national juried exhibitions at Louisiana State University, Creative Arts Workshop, Grey Art Gallery, New York Studio School, the West Kortright Centre and recently in exhibitions in Phoenix, Nashville, New York, Charleston, Manchester, and Baltimore. Malin is represented by Caldbeck Gallery in Rockland, Maine and Cole Pratt Gallery in New Orleans, LA.

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