PORTLAND, Maine — Since 2003, when Kate Hargrave received her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, she’s been toiling away at developing her artistic visions while refusing to exhibit her paintings, like a tinkerer conjuring up inventions in secret. Now, for the first time in over 20 years, she’s allowed her hefty oils painted on 3/4-inch birch panels to stray from the safety of her Maine studio to Moss Galleries for the public to gawk and coo, and they’re a pleasure to encounter.
What is apparent from this peek inside her world is Hargrave’s deep love of art history. Historical artists (e.g., Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Lucas Cranach, Titian, Bosch) freely collide with modern ones (e.g., Remedios Varo, Magritte, Balthus, Leonora Carrington), resulting in paintings that ignite contemporary visions rooted in types of memory, if not history. Most of the works are nocturnal scenes, particularly moody moonlit views in forests or interiors that hint at a lunar glow through doorways.
Hargrave relishes texture as much as line. In “The Supper Guests” (2020), a clowder of kitties appear enchanted as they lounge atop a table bathed in moonlight. While the figures seated around them ignore the felines, our attention is drawn to them like a cosmic birth. A little askew, a ghost-like male floats, and the interiority of each figure makes you wonder if the image is a composite of a series of events.
In general, views are tilted upward. They’re theatrical in nature, and ceilings, like skies, are rarely in sight. Our perspective is that of an omnipotent presence, or perhaps a child arranging people and furniture in a dollhouse below.
Hargrave uses a more rhythmic, flame-like brushstroke in “The Milkmaid” (2024) that sets everything ablaze. As in her other work, figures are either in movement or on the verge of it, which gives the imagery an unsettled quality. Figures, like stories, migrate into new worlds that appear as delicate as they are intricate.
During her 20 years away from the public eye, Hargrave became a mother, and moments of parental warmth emerge in paintings like “The Babysitter” (2018). The influence of children’s book illustrators is also evident, and in those two decades she’s built up a sense that childhood development, like an artistic practice, has its own pace. It may have taken a while to rear these artworks, but they are more than ready for the big, bad world outside.
Kate Hargrave: The Journal continues at Moss Galleries (100 Fore Street, Suite B, Portland, Maine) through March 8. The exhibition was organized by the gallery.
