Julia Dubsky and Kyle McDonald—nascent dirty lemon yellow

nascent dirty lemon yellow is an exhibition of paintings involving collaboration by Julia Dubsky and Kyle McDonald. The artists have shared conversations about their similar and conflicting painting sensibilities over several years of friendship.

This show brings together their individual work alongside recent paintings made by both, on single canvases. What it would mean for two painters to collaborate is an open question that addresses, among other things, separate authorship and channels of connection between separate artworks.

When we look at painting, it is often possible to get an impression of how the painting was made or what sort of activity is involved: is the artist a hermit? do they think they’re channeling magic? are they using references from which they benefit but the authors or subjects of those references don’t? However we work, is part of the material.

Collaboration might be all the more unusual for paintings of this appearance, which take queue at least in part from a Nabis aesthetic, otherwise named Intimist, for the dabbled brush marks that evoked a sense of sincere, private space… as an exercise, what if this privacy is shared?

Biographies:

Kyle McDonald (b. 1990, Dublin) is a visual artist based in Leipzig, since graduating from the National College of Art and Design painting department in 2015. Recent shows include The flies are crawling, group show, Prießnitz Gallery, Leipzig (2018), Minas Kava, solo exhibition, Feigen un Dart, Leipzig (2018).

Julia Dubsky (b. 1990, Dublin) graduated from the NCAD Fine Art and Visual Culture BA in 2016; and she received the Temple Bar Gallery and Studios Recent Graduate Residency Award in 2017. Upcoming: a solo exhibition in Amanada Wilkinson Gallery, London (2019). Julia is currently doing a mentorship in the class of Jutta Koether, in Germany. A painting purchased by the Office of Public Works, is currently showing in the cross-boarder exhibition Untitled [landscape]. Recent exhibitions and public speaking include: Island Life group show in Kevin Kavanagh Gallery (2018), Salon of Good Time solo residency exhibition in Temple Bar Gallery + Studios (2018); Basic Space Artist Talk, Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane (2018).

The exhibition is kindly supported by a Dublin City Council grant for exhibitions.