Practical Magic

Katelyn Eichwald – Practical Magic
April 9 – May 9 2017
On Trump’s Inauguration Day, painter Katelyn Eichwald’s husband was hospitalized with a serious illness. Holding everything together in a time of crisis required a kind of witchcraft: spells seemed as likely to help as doctors. The paintings in “Practical Magic” are moody and paranoid, but they are also rooted in the physical world — murky with egg tempera the color of dried blood, on unprimed canvas scraps cut roughly like animal skins. Lizards flick their fire tongues; women lean over strange brews; a pack of dogs circles endlessly in the rain, as if bewitched. These are paintings for people who google medical terminology with their breath held; who read message boards; who buy small rocks and talismans from gift shops and squeeze them in their palms while they sleep. They are paintings for desperate people, which is all of us.

Katelyn Eichwald lives and works in Chicago. She earned an MFA from California College of the Arts in San Francisco (2012) and a BFA from University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana (2009). Her most recent exhibitions include a 2-person show, “Katelyn Eichwald & Peter Shear,” at Alter Space in San Francisco and two group shows, “Domestic Tranquility” at Zero Zero LA in Los Angeles and “Mother Popcorn” at Big Medium in Austin.