MAGALIE GUÉRIN
B. 1973

Magalie Guérin’s painting practice has developed through sustained experimentation with the medium’s formal and ontological possibilities. Her interest lies beyond defined systems of representation or abstraction, instead seeking to emphasize specific pictorial relationships, including those of figure/ground, pattern/color, and space/edge. Embossed checkered squares and crinkled striations overlap and adjoin with limb-like contours and gradated forms; slices of vivid orange and deep green contrast with muted earth tones and soft pastels. What distinguishes a brushstroke, a slice of solid paint, a ridge of medium from each other calls for an openness to shifting visual interpretations. This sense of cultivated interiority within each work is mirrored by the external, subjective experience of encountering it. Free from any mimetic boundaries, Guérin’s paintings invite viewers to construct their own narrative of signification, drawing new meanings from unexpected interactions of color, texture, line, and form.

Magalie Guérin (b. Montréal, 1973) received her MFA in Painting and Drawing from the School of the Art Institute in Chicago in 2011. Her work has been exhibited in shows at Galerie Nicolas Robert, Toronto, Canada (2024); Corbett vs Dempsey, Chicago, IL (2022); Amanda Wilkinson Gallery, London (2020); and Chapter NY, New York (2019). Her work is included in the public collections of the The Art Museum of West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV; Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, CA; the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, Québec City, Canada; Collection Hydro-Québec, Montréal, Canada; DePaul Art Museum, Chicago, IL; and the Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY.

Guérin is the author of NOTES ON, a compilation of studio writings published by The Green Lantern Press in 2016 (second edition 2019). She was awarded the Pace Award for a mid-career painter at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, RI, (2019) and a Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant and Chinati Foundation residency (2018). Guérin is based in Marfa, TX.

C.V. (PDF)