Margaret Evangeline

Shot Through: New Paintings

March 31 - April 23, 2005

Stefan Stux Gallery presents Shot Through: New Paintings by Margaret Evangeline on view through April 23. This will

be the artist's first exhibition at the gallery.

Although Margaret Evangeline still has the languid intensity of a New Orleanian, she has been living and working

in New York City since 1993. This biographical detail may help to explain her comfortable handling of the process

that informs her abstract paintings. In Shot Through:New Paintings, M a rgaret Evangeline uses various weaponry

such as a Savage Arms 12 gauge shotg u n , a Desert Eagle, a Colt. 45 and a Luger 108 to create twenty-one new

stainless steel paintings. In the artist's words, “I want the sensation of painting without the paint”.

E v a n g eline also notes the desire for transparency as a constant within her process. She quotes Andre Gide as a

source for these strangely elegant reflective surfaces, “beauty… inspired by madness, written in reason.”

The title of the show, Shot Through, refers to a moment, a lucid experience, that is the end of illusion.

Included in the exhibition is Evangel i n e's charged 3.5 minute video, Once Upon a Time, America (2005). Fo o t a g e

taken while the artist was producing a site-specific work for Art/Omi International has been edited to heighten play

between illusion and reality. The viewer experiences the impact and reverberating sound of rifleshot through what

appears to be a melting surface. The sound of the artist's voice, distorted reflections of a forest and the artist's body

are essential components of this sublimely unsettling work. Also included in Shot Through is LosLunas, a

Photojournal, Feb r u a ry, 2005, small-scaled photographs of a deserted shooting range outside of Los Lu n a s , New

Mexico. These have been printed on aluminum.