Visions & Visage

Lindsay Mullen & Hetty Baiz

May 13th - June 11th, 2022

Visions & Visage is a dual exhibition by Hetty Baiz and Lindsay Mullen at Calloway Fine Art. Both artists, while choosing different subject matter, create paintings of rich surfaces constructed from layers of interwoven color, line and form. In conversation together they evoke a feeling of transience, a fleeting presence of people and place.

This exhibit is dedicated to the people and lands of Ukraine. 10% of all proceeds will go to the charity Voices of Children, which supports Ukrainian Children to process the trauma of war through art therapy.

Hetty Baiz’s ambiguous portraits of unnamed people are taken from old photographs, and are made by weaving together printed paper and jute into small squares that, when assembled into a grid on canvas, form the total image. Oil pastel, ink, paint, gold leaf are rubbed or splattered onto the surface further obscuring the identity of the subject and emphasizing the heavily textured physical properties of the object. The portraits appear to be fading into the rugged surface, or perhaps emerging from it, and the identity of the subject is absorbed into the rich materiality. Each face seems to be in a state of flux, in an undifferentiated landscape, a shifting sea of open questions - about identity, and mortality, and time – examining the transient nature of place, our place, in the world and the fragility of our human existence.

Lindsay Mullen’s rich landscapes offer unique visions that evoke the fleeting presence of place, by creating a marriage of abstract and figurative work. Mindfully placed layers of oil paint are applied with brush and palette knife, resulting in an overarching structure that draws the eye across the body of work through intentional, rhythmical pauses. Diffused and reflective lines are painted into the surface of the canvas, similar to those found upon an ageing face, illustrating the marked wisdom infused by the passage of time. While one might see an ominous track towards suffering, another sees an uplifting path towards survival-perspective.