Saira McLaren and Michelle Oosterbaan

Fantasme, March 2012

This March Grizzly Grizzly will be awash in color; ‘Fantasme’ is a two-person exhibition featuring Saira McLaren and Michelle Oosterbaan.  Both artists will be creating new work for this innovative exhibition that explores the perceptual power of color.

Brooklyn-based painter, Saira McLaren will be presenting two new series of panel-based work created with fabric dye and bleach.  While local artist, Michelle Oosterbaan will be creating a site-specific installation that incorporates wall painting and works on paper.  Both of these exceptional artists use highly saturated color to explore the liminal space between representation and abstraction.

Contemplating the work for the exhibition, Saira McLaren shares a fitting Leonard Cohen quote “every damnation is poisoned with rainbows.” McLaren’s work, which glows with soft-edged stains of luminous color, abstracts the garden landscape, transforming what could be merely a mundane backdrop into a site for longing and desire.  Michelle Oosterbaan uses hard-edged hue to map the space between memory and daydreams in a series of gouache on paper and panel works.  A latex wall-painting will further connect the individual works.

Artist Bios

Saira McLaren is a Brooklyn-based artist whose work has been exhibited throughout the US and her native Canada. Recent exhibitions include group shows at ZieherSmith, St Cecilia's Convent, and the Hal Brom Gallery.  Her work with the Art Book Club will be included in the ‘You, Me, We, She’ exhibition running concurrently at Fleischer Ollman as well as the Printed Matter Art Book Fair at PS1.

Michelle Oosterbaan is currently living and working in Philadelphia after a stint of residencies around the world, which took her to the Netherlands, Iceland, and Paris, in addition to stays at prestigious US programs such as Yaddo and The MacDowell Colony. In addition to numerous solo shows, her work has been featured in group exhibitions at The Drawing Center (NYC), Gallery Joe (Philadelphia), and The Delaware Art Museum (Wilmington).