Addison/Ripley Fine Art Presents Carlotta Hester Rapture

Opening Reception: Saturday, December 11 from 1pm to 6pm

The title for Carlotta Hester’s exhibition, her first at Addison/Ripley, of effusive, color saturated paintings, Rapture, underscores the immediate impression they make on first glance. They glow with light, pigment and energy, spin in constellations of color over white canvas fields. Although abstract, each painting has a structure, a scaffolding lifting it out of chaos. Each of the large canvases is suspended on a pure white surface, wild, free and fresh, distilled to their essence, the colors overlapping and mixing on the canvas.

The artist has exhibited widely, most recently in Cuba and in Ireland. She divides her time between her studio and teaching in the prestigious Maret School in Washington, DC. Her work includes densely encrusted collages and fine figurative drawings. A recent book,The Pure Drop, of drawings of traditional Irish musicians, singers, and dancers, and featuring a foreword by Alice McDermott was published in 2020.This exhibition of recent paintings is presented and curated in partnership with Chris Murray and Govinda Gallery.

Painted on the floor in a relatively small studio, Hester’s paintings follow in the grand mid-twentieth century tradition of Helen Frankenthaler, Sam Francis and Jackson Pollock. Their bold assurance and strong coloration mark them as hers alone though.

“Every artist dips her brush into her own soul, and paints her own truth into her pictures.” – Henry Ward Beecher

The gallery is located in Upper Georgetown at the intersection of Wisconsin Avenue and Reservoir Road and will be open Tuesday through Saturday from 11 until 4 and by appointment.

Addison/Ripley Fine Art is located at 1670 Wisconsin Avenue NW.