After Ingres, 2014

Blind Venus (for G),2018

Currently at Walter Maciel Gallery is Katherine Sherwood’s solo exhibition, The Interior of the Yelling Clinic.  The title, according to the press release, takes its name from an organized group of six artists, including Sherwood, “who have an interest in the intersections between war and disability. The Yelling Clinic was created to mix artistic practice with community outreach, art instruction and activism.”

Sherwood’s paintings are influenced by famous European works but also include evidence of physical disabilities (like the cane in Blind Venus, pictured above) and her own brain scans. After a cerebral hemorrhage at 44, the artist lost the use of her right arm and hand and was forced to learn to paint with her left. The nudes mix the personal with the traditional while also challenging notions of beauty and the idealized female form. Adding another dimension to the paintings, they are created on the backs of old art history painting reproductions that she saved from being thrown away by the UC Berkeley Art Department where she taught. The gallery has hung one of her flower paintings (pictured below) from the ceiling so that you can see an example of what is on the other side of the work.

This exhibition closes 4/28/18.