In her upcoming exhibition, Forth and Back, Loree presents a series of pairs of paintings that continue her exploration of the opposing forces of freedom and constraint. In each pair, one of the paintings displays the artist’s typically unrestrained, intuitive approach, while the other demonstrates an attempt to replicate the composition of the first – a highly constrained, pre-determined experiment. What began as a playful exercise became a purposeful analysis and deconstruction of a previously instinctive method. In challenging herself to duplicate the marks and painterly accidents observed in the first painting, Loree had to significantly deepen her understanding of her materials and processes. In pausing to reflect on and identify the nuances within her painting process, a number of questions arose for the artist: How does one replicate a gesture in an authentic way without the work feeling contrived? What are the relative benefits of the planned and the unplanned? Where is the border between premeditation and contrivance? How does one engage with and find meaning in the repetitive and the predictable? Is it possible to simultaneously refine and expand a work of art? In deliberately concealing the order of the paintings, Loree leaves the viewer to compare and contrast their differentiating elements, and to speculate on the correct ordering of each pair. Through the necessary extended viewing, Loree hopes to induce a meditation on the force/flow dichotomy similar to her own.
