KAREN McCLANAHAN - STACKS NOW ON VIEW AT PLUS GALLERY

One of the most unique attributes to our current show, and one that we know has been a challenge for artist Karen McClanahan for years now, is the thought she has put into displaying her thread drawings and other small-scale works on paper.  McClanahan recently developed a very simple and elegant solution with her significant other Steve Lauman, whom she bills as a "machinist and astronomical instrument maker."  Steve has used his machinist knowledge to craft the aluminum stands on display in "Stacks," which greatly enhance the delicacy of the drawings as well as the unique, limited edition "SCL9 Stacked Book" package containing 9 separate drawings that reference her "Sequential Chroma Loop 9."  Karen recently posted an image of pedestals in fabrication on her website, along with a display image showing how lovely these works look in a home environment.  Stop in to see them for yourself, along with the rest of the outstanding paintings in "Stacks," on view through October 13th.

KAREN McCLANAHAN - "STACKS" NOW ON VIEW AT PLUS GALLERY

Plus Gallery launched the fall season in style last Friday with the opening of Karen McClanahan's latest solo exhibition "Stacks."   It's been over three years since Karen last took center stage at the gallery, her first last appearance coinciding with the grand opening of our space at 25th and Larimer.  McClanahan had as much experience with our exhibition space as we did at that time, namely none!  The results were still fantastic, acclaim coming in heavy doses from the critical community for the gallery as well as Karen's efforts.  With "Stacks" Karen has managed to put together an exhibition that is in solid contrast to that previous effort, working on a more intimate scale while continuing push a vein that brings combinations of ideas together conceptually as diptychs, triptychs and larger groupings, such as the extraordinary centerpiece "Sequential Chroma Loop 9."   Throw in a trio of superb thread-drawings on custom-built aluminum stands, a couple of limited edition "book" packages, and an awe-inspiring usage of color throughout, and you have one of the most sophisticated and luminous experiences yet in the history of our space at 25th and Larimer.

Visit our website now to view images of karen's work, an experience, however, not even remotely as rich as viewing them in person:

http://www.plusgallery.com/exhibitions/65/132/

Karen McClanahan - Stacks installation view

Visit the Plus Gallery scrapbook page to view photos from last friday's opening reception.

PLUS GALLERY LAUNCHES FALL SEASON THIS FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 7TH WITH SOLO EXHIBITION "STACKS" FEATURING NEW WORKS BY KAREN McCLANAHAN

Plus Gallery opens the fall 2012 season with the return of Karen McClanahan, one of the most acclaimed and revered artists in the gallery stable, for her unprecedented fifth solo exhibition "Stacks." Karen's latest exploration is a major divergence from her previous effort, 2009's "Everything Has Its Place," taking a more intimate and varied approach, both in scale and diversity of the works. The title "Stacks" has many associations - among others, it suggests the broad context of a library: books, order, indexing, and the self-referentiality of the former index card system. For McClanahan's purposes of the exhibition it refers to how geometric fields were painted in this new body of work - stacked and overlapping one another. It relates to the look of the compositions - defined geometric shapes stacked one upon the other. Finally, it alludes to the horizontal lines stacked one above the other in the multi panel work "Sequential Chroma Loop 9," the first of it's kind for the artist. The SCL9 accompanying book is a literal stack of individual pages housed in an archival box.

 Plus Gallery will welcome McClanahan back to Denver for the opening reception this Friday, September 7th from 6-8pm, please join us that night.  Read more about Karen's current body of work on the current exhibition page of the Plus Gallery website.