Debbie McAfee: Between Earth and Sky
October 19 - November 30, 2024
Artist talk: October 26, 11am
In her second exhibition of textile “paintings” at Craig Krull Gallery, Debbie McAfee offers intimate windows into the contemplative quiet of desert dawns and dusks. A longtime resident of the high desert in Southern California, McAfee has driven and walked the land around Joshua Tree for years, observing and recording the terrain and conditions around her. In the summer, the nighttime provides respite from the hot, dry days; in the winter, night is brisk and challenging.
McAfee’s newest nightscapes dance between these poles, as the artist employs swathes of swirling cloth and an Impressionist’s attention to color to create tactile vistas that are both whimsical and reverent. A trained photographer and diligent documentarian, McAfee sorts through her archive of images to find the right reference from which to begin. She then splices the frame into squares, pruning trees and rocks into geometric shapes adorned with topographic stitching and re-presenting fragments with collaged and sewn fabric. Even solid color sectioned are embellished with dynamic stitching that emphasizes the physicality of the two-dimensional plane. These joyful renderings of rock formations and Joshua trees celebrate the land’s beauty, while dark skies are thrown in relief with stark white stars.