Claudia McCabe Receives Oeno Gallery Award of Excellence at Art in the County
Oeno Gallery continues its longstanding support of Art in the County through the Oeno Gallery Award of Excellence, presented annually to an artist whose work demonstrates outstanding achievement. This year’s recipient is Claudia McCabe for her painting, In Sterling Mist.
In presenting the award, Carlyn Moulton, Owner of Oeno Gallery, offered these remarks:
“First let me offer my congratulations to everyone who has contributed to this exhibition. You are a courageous lot, having tackled the perennial problem of the blank canvas, a miscellany of rocks, wire, fabric or discarded bits and turned them into something wondrous.
This year’s Award of Excellence goes to Claudia McCabe for her painting, In Sterling Mist.
This is a subtle work, one that is reminiscent of the great Catalan abstractionist Antoni Tàpies. It is a painting full of marvelous contradictions. At first glance, it presents as coolly minimalist — seemingly black and white, opaque, and elusive, like standing before a window we cannot quite see through. It invites us to come closer.
Upon closer examination, we discover the artist’s masterful use of subtle colour, fragments of fibre, textured mark-making, patterns suggestive of leaves or feathers. What at first appears a dark, dominant shape reveals itself to be an old roofing shingle, constructed from organic fibres — a network reminiscent of mycelium, pressed together and punching through remnants of asphalt. This is a still life with movement, a work of addition and subtraction, abstraction that dances with the figurative in a totemic fashion.
Thank you, Claudia, for your gift.”
Oeno Gallery extends its congratulations to Claudia McCabe and to all of the artists whose work is featured in this year’s exhibition.