Alicia McCarthy’s abstract and colorful compositions immediately capture the viewer’s attention. From a distance, the use of repeating geometric patterns is reminiscent of 1960s Op Art. A closer look reveals that these optical effects are not designed and calculated with mathematical precision by a machine, but are the result of spontaneous gestures. McCarthy’s modular color blocks are quite improvisational and concrete. By incorporating drips and splashes of color, she moves freely through her work, boldly embracing vibrant imperfection. Her work starts from the center and unfolds line by line, with a strong sense of presence.
The ribbons don’t just form a grid; They are intertwined in a tapestry-like pattern. Where they intersect and connect, the colors change. Simple yet complex, simple yet profound, these works play with our perceptions. Listen with your eyes, be carried away by the movements and rhythms composed of lines, like a musical score, listen and feel the stories they tell. Each line has a unique personality, and their relationships are social—they interact with each other and with us. Telling a visual story about interconnectedness, community and the complex social fabric that connects us as a whole.
McCarthy expresses personal and urban poetics, approaching the spontaneity of graffiti. In addition to subject matter, her work stems from ongoing experimentation with materiality. Alicia McCarthy is rooted in San Francisco’s active queer punk scene and is one of the central figures of the so-called “church school” along with Barry McGee, Margaret Kilgallen, Ruby Neri and Chris Johanson. Named after San Francisco’s Mission District, where artists lived and worked in the 1990s as a low-rent, pre-gentrified neighborhood, the group came together around independent music, skateboarding, community-driven projects, queer politics, and zine publishing. Influenced by the diverse urban environment and the natural beauty of San Francisco’s neighborhood, they began to create art that carries a myriad of emotions: simultaneously optimistic and pessimistic, abstract and figurative, harsh yet humorously tender, rooted in tradition yet avant-garde.
https://v1gallery.com/en-usd/blogs/exhibitions/alicia-mccarthy-1
