EKDgallery
THREE GENERATIONS OF ARTISTS
WITH A PASSION FOR COLOR
THE URGE
JANUARY 18 - MARCH 25
EKD Gallery is thrilled to present The Urge, featuring the work of Erin Reid, Karen Reid, and special guest artist, Lorna Ritz. The exhibition opens on January 18 and will remain on view through March 25, 2022.
The Urge is an homage to the inexplicable. An urge demonstrates the mysterious impulses that drive action, a journey, and creation. This transitive state, of both sensitive longing and
overwhelming drive, beckons the artist. The Urge honors an artist’s call to action, the need to
satiate an appetite, a need to discover that which cannot be seen, although, obviously, present.
This exhibition reveals the creations that materialize after such a pursuit. These conscious
longings drive Erin Reid, Karen Reid, and Lorna Ritz to present three striking variations on
painting that reveal the urge through the repetition of spira, the transcendence of space and
light, and the presence of the gaze.
The Urge advocates for exhibitions of fresh creation, and of fresh faces. EKD Gallery is honored to exhibit the work of Lorna Ritz, the gallery’s very first guest artist to be presented since opening in September 2020.
Although visually diverse, these artists’ distinct abilities to intuit compulsion into creation extend the urge to grow in the viewer.
RISING MOON
Lorna Ritz
Oil on canvas
36 x 48 inches
2019
$5800
"I am a nature painter; the nature “out there” coupled with my own internal landscape." -LORNA RITZ
THE SOUND OF SNOW
Lorna Ritz
Oil on canvas
46 x 34 inches
2018
$5800
PRAYING AS HARD AS I CAN
Lorna Ritz
Oil on canvas
48 x 38 inches
2018
$5100
" How I place shapes together becomes the structure in both the paintings and the drawings: ‘(where’ they exist in space in relationship to each other). The picture plane in the paintings changes constantly through the volume that color creates, (in a constant state of relational movement). " -LORNA RITZ
WINTER IN D MINOR
Lorna Ritz
Oil on canvas
46 x 34 inches
2018
$5100
DEPARTING DAY
Lorna Ritz
Oil on canvas
48 x 38 inches
2020
$7200
" What one thinks is coming forward then shoots back when in relationship to something else coming forward. " -LORNA RITZ
WINTER SLIDING INTO SPRING
Lorna Ritz
Oil on canvas
40 x 30 inches
2020
$5380
Suns in my eyes
Erin Reid
Oil on canvas
48 x 36 inches
2021
$2000
"There's a disjointedness about the selfie. At the same time, they can be so vastly personal and lack a natural representation of the self. " -ERIN REID
Um, hallo?
Erin Reid
Oil on canvas
48 x 36 inches
2021
$2000
I made some choicessss.
Erin Reid
Oil on canvas
48 x 36 inches
2021
$2000
"A pose lends a persona to the subject. I play with the pose in the mirror before starting a painting.
Each pose instructed me to find a specific palette and stroke that matched this new role I was playing." -ERIN REID
Daggers/Beautiful things don't ask for attention
Erin Reid
Oil on canvas
48 x 36 inches
2021
$2000
I dunno. It's Friday?
Erin Reid
Oil on canvas
48 x 36 inches
2021
$2000
"Taking a selfie is like perpetuating the initial shock of seeing yourself in a photo, and then privately relishing in it. I am fascinated by this compulsion as an abstract human behavior." -ERIN REID
Everyday is a party when you're
celebrating yourself
Erin Reid
Oil on canvas
48 x 36 inches
2021
$2000
SPEIRA 1
Karen Reid
Oil pastel on panel
12 x 16 inches
2021
$1200
SPEIRA 2
Karen Reid
Oil pastel on canvas
24 x 24 inches
2021
$1800
"I began using these continuous spirals, instead of a scribble, to cross out tasks at work. Only until I started drawing spirals across the entire surface, did I think about the spiral as nature " -KAREN REID
SPEIRA 3
Karen Reid
Oil on canvas
40 x 40 inches
2021
$3000
SPEIRA 4
Karen Reid
Pencil & charcoal on cardboard
16 x 13.5 inches
2021
$500
SPEIRA 5
Karen Reid
Oil on canvas
30 x 30 inches
2021
$2400
"I never think about my paintings as living within the confines of the canvas. As with the spirals, there are no beginnings and endings. They seem to suspend in space and continue endlessly." -KAREN REID
" I needed a change. I needed to challenge myself. I got rid of the squeegee. I wanted to hear what the brush sounded like against the canvas again. Then, I started breaking down the spiral. " -KAREN REID
SPEIRA 6
Karen Reid
Pencil, charcoal, and oil pastel on cardboard
13.5 x 18.5 inches
2021
$600
SPEIRA 7
Karen Reid
Pencil, charcoal, and oil pastel on cardboard
8 x 7.5 inches
2021
$400
Lorna Ritz received her MFA from the Cranberry Academy Art, Michigan and her BFA from Pratt Institute, New York. She has shown extensively throughout New England, alongside a notable teaching career at major institutions such as RISD, University of Minnesota, and Dartmouth College. She has traveled through the U.S. Information Embassy to teach overseas in Malta and Honduras and has exhibited with the Art-in-Embassies Program, D.C. in Africa, Guatemala, and Caracas. Ritz is included in numerous public and private collections including The University of Michigan Museum of Contemporary Art and the Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art. She currently works out of her barn studio in Amherst, MA.
Karen Reid studied at The Art Institute of Boston, The South Shore Art Center in Cohasset, MA. The Fuller Museum in Brockton, MA. The Danforth Museum in Framingham, MA. and The School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, MA where she earned her diploma in Fine Arts. She has studied many forms of fine art including drawing, painting, ceramics, monoprint and encaustics. Presently, her work centers on drawing and painting using oil paint, watercolor, wax and charcoal. Currently, Karen works out of her studio in Oxford, MA. and teaches painting and expressive art classes. Her work has been exhibited throughout New England.
Erin Reid is an interdisciplinary artist that plays with nuance. Her work seeks to extract the vulnerability of a moment and highlight the universality of being. With backgrounds in theater and writing, her artworks are stressed by light, scene, and narrative. Her studies at the School of the Art Institute for Chicago directed her interest in painting, film, performance, and installation. Her painting is derived from personally-edited videography and installation, allowing her to compose whilst honoring a moment’s instinct and emotional honesty. Erin has exhibited in Chicago, Connecticut, and throughout Massachusetts. She currently works at the Worcester Art Museum and pursues independent studies alongside painter and mentor, Elaine Smollin. She is also Co-Founder of EKDgallery, a virtual gallery opened alongside her mother, Karen Reid, and artist, Don Munson.
Works available to view by appointment.
Contact: Karen Reid at ekdgallery@gmail.com