2019 Catalogue Archive

Catherine MacMahon’s deceptively simple steel rods wrapped in thread or yarn beg the viewer to slow down and look very closely. In describing these works, she says, “I think of them as simultaneously being drawing, painting, and sculpture. They are drawings because they are lines – one of the most primitive human acts of creativity is to make a line. My paint is thread. They are sculptural, but they are also landscapes.” Spatially, there is also the cumulative effect of the spiraling line (thread) on a curving line (steel rod), as they merge together into a dense torqueing space floating in front of the wall. Born and raised in New Orleans, MacMahon graduated from the University of Texas, Austin in architecture and interior design and marketing before receiving her MFA in design from the California College of the Arts in San Francisco. She has exhibited her work at galleries in Texas, California, and New York.