Kathryn Bagwell: the messengers
December 2, 2023 - January 6, 2024
Press Release
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Ro2 Art is excited to present The Messengers, an exhibition of new sculptures by Kathryn Bagwell. The exhibition will open December 2, 2023 and remain on view through January 6, 2024, at Ro2 Art Gallery, located at 2606 Bataan St., Dallas, TX, with an opening reception to be held December 2 from 7-10pm. This will be the artist’s first solo exhibition with the gallery.
With MESSENGERS, Kathryn Bagwell takes inspiration from her musical studies by creating a sense of synaesthesia. Her improvisational style is evident in this ambitious new exhibition. Drawn from her love of ancient art, Bagwell explores two mediums: life-sized figurative sculptures made from mahogany and paintings in oil on canvas. Bagwell artfully blends the engagement of earth and sky, life and death, you and I. In MESSENGERS, she explores the spiritual interconnectedness among all things. Like a blanket that covers the earth, we are all woven in a shared seam. Her works braid human vulnerability, a celebration of the living, and the deep existential pain of loss into a universal thread of shared experiences with the beauty of simply being human. Kathryn Bagwell’s work finely brushes the ancient past using anthropomorphic lines that stretch into humanity’s past and present day civilizations, yet keeping an awareness that there will be civilizations in the future. By juxtaposing these lines with geometric emblems, she creates a metaphor for shared human experience. She states, “The miracle of life is present in all things,” an ode to everything in the past and everything that will become. MESSENGERS reminds us of the universal human connection and provides an opportunity to express both the respect as well as the comicality that exist in each and every one of us. |
About the Artist
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Kathryn Bagwell’s oil and collage works depict both women and men in a broad figurative style ranging from cubist to expressionism and realism. Based in Texas, Bagwell’s portfolio is influenced by her professional experience and education as a musician, her love for ancient art, and her interest in the dualities of the human being.
Born in Arkansas, Bagwell was introduced to art early by her family’s weekly trips to the Arkansas Arts Center in Little Rock. Her degree choice was music as she has worked extensively as a professional singer and plays several instruments; but drawing is a generational skill in the family. The death of her sister in 2006 prompted a turn in her practice, from music to visual art. Bagwell is improvisational in her practice, and rotates between her self- developed styles. The works are colorful, utilizing charcoal lines and thick oil paint as well as newspaper, vintage music and handmade paper from around the world. Subjects of the works frequently make strong eye contact with the viewer. The art is cross cultural, and incorporates psychological themes ranging from female empowerment and societal chaos to self-deception and introspection. Her first solo exhibition was in 2020 in Bishop Arts in Dallas, and she has been featured in various group shows and publications in the United States throughout the pandemic. She has sold and shipped works to London, France and Australia as well as throughout the United States. A Kathryn Bagwell work hangs next to a Willem de Kooning painting in a client’s home in Dallas, where the artist lives and works. |
