In Time, With Time

In Time, With Time

On View: June 28 – December 1, 2024 In Time, With Time features work by Philadelphia painters Paula Cahill and Karen Freedman. Both artists’ practice reflects on how color aids in one’s ability to perceive time, both linear and not. They explore how to direct the eye through a painting and provide a meditative space for the artist and viewer to ebb and flow within the natural movement of the canvas. Karen Freedman’s Qualia series directly references the philosophy of being able to perceive and feel the intangible. Her patterned paintings explore the movement of color, and how a pigment placed on a stagnant canvas can appear to push and pull a pattern. Paula Cahill’s practice is deeply connected to the exploration of line and its relationship to an abstract form. Cahill’s line slices through the canvas and provides a subject for the viewer’s meandering exploration. Her paintings bring us to a space of reflection, where it’s easy to lose track of time while feeling acutely aware of its passage.

(Cover image, detail)

Entanglement, Paula Cahill

Paula Cahill

Artist Statement

“Entanglement” and “Stowaway II” are part of an experimental painting series that relied on subconscious emotion and off kilter experience. Dormant secrets, near misses, the vast sea, and tragedy were all catalysts for this artwork. Fields of color, markings, and line were created with oil paint, sharpies, and graphite.

Tools included rollers, brushes, fingers, knives, and rags. The surfaces were sanded or scraped and after careful evaluation, the process repeatedly started over. Painting experiences, spurred on by intuition and the space of memory, resulted in cryptic notations of long forgotten events and places, with each artwork sparked by its own backstory and emotions. “Entanglement” embodies the space of a memory and its accompanying emotion which is vastly different than the memory of a specific place.

The painting invites the viewer into a tangled and disorienting moment based on a diving incident off the Island of Tahiti. What was to be an easy dive to about 45 feet, took a strange turn of events. As the dive master led us into a cavernous coral formation, I could not help but notice that all the coral was bleached white.

As the last member to enter the cave, I carefully swam behind my team, but soon my tanks became lodged in the tubular formation. I began to panic and reached for my scuba knife to try to dislodge myself. Sand began to stir up from the ocean’s floor and clouded my vision, disorienting me in space. I knew that if I cut the oxygen lines, I would have little time to exit the tunnel. I wondered if my companions even realized that I was in trouble. The more I panicked the less I

could see or function. As I pulled my knife from its strap, I felt a tug as the Dive Master pulled me out of the coral formation, into clarity and safety. Relieved, but shook, I completed the dive and managed to act calmly. When we returned to the boat, I asked the Dive Master why the coral was white. He explained that France had been testing nuclear weapons in French Polynesia since 1966 and that the practice had killed and bleached the previously colorful coral. The nuclear testing continued until 1996.

While “Entanglement” was born of near miss and public tragedy, shame and secrecy were the catalysts for “Stowaway II.” When my grandfather emigrated to the United States, he had the necessary documentation to enter the country, but his family was so poor that he could not afford a ticket to America, and he stowed away in the hull of a ship. My grandparents were so ashamed by his poverty and illegal transportation that my grandfather’s story remained a secret until long after his death.

Each backstory led me to a unique and emotional painting experience. Despite formal beginnings, “Entanglement” and “Stowaway II” relied on intuition, buried emotion, and the space of fragmented memory to guide their resolution of and determine each painting’s specific language. In so doing, the stories themselves remain alive and unfinished. (detail)

Stowaways, Paula Cahill

Paula Cahill

Entanglement, 2015 Oil and sharpie on linen 92 x 72˝ $8,500

Paula Cahill

Stowaways, 2016 Oil on canvas 30 x 48˝ $3,600

Karen Freedman

Artist Statement

Qualia, a term used in philosophy, refers to the subjective or qualitative properties of experiences. In other words, qualia are the attributes of something—its feel or appearance rather than the thing itself.

My series, “Qualia”, is rooted in that ideology—an acknowledgement that no two people will experience my paintings in the same way. It is also a continuation of my exploration of visual perception and cognition through the interaction of color within the confines of symmetrical patterning.

Color is not static. Its appearance is modified by its relationship to other colors.

I use that effect to challenge the predictability inherent in patterns through the juxtaposition and modulation of value and hue. The objective term for this effect is simultaneous contrast; the subjective phenomenon is qualia.

Karen Freedman

Qualia 5719, 2019 Acrylic on canvas 40 x 40˝ $4,000

Karen Freedman

Qualia 3819, 2019 Acrylic on canvas 40 x 40˝ $4,000

Karen Freedman

Qualia 3320, 2019 Acrylic on canvas 40 x 40˝ $4,000

Karen Freedman

Qualia 1123, 2019 Acrylic on canvas 40 x 40˝ $4,000

Karen Freedman Qualia 715, 2018 Acrylic on canvas 36 x 36˝ $3,500

Karen Freedman Qualia 403, 2018 Acrylic on canvas 36 x 36˝ $3,500

Karen Freedman Qualia 333, 2018 Acrylic on canvas 12 x 12˝ $500

Karen Freedman Qualia 314, 2017 Acrylic on canvas 24 x 24˝ $2,500

Karen Freedman Qualia 133, 2018 Acrylic on canvas 12 x 12˝ $500

1400 N American Street Philadelphia, PA 19122 (215) 235 - 3405 www.inliquid.org

Karen Freedman Qualia 214, 2017 Acrylic on canvas 24 x 24˝ $2,500

1100 Ludlow Street Philadelphia, PA 19107

All works are available for purchase on Artsy.