Morton Fine Art is pleased to announce Thanatopsis, a solo show of new work by Rosemary Feit Covey, on view from September 4th – October 4th, 2024 at Morton Fine Art’s Washington, D.C. location (52 O St NW #302, Washington, DC). Thanatopsis brings together recent work in which Feit Covey continues to push the boundaries of experimental printmaking, producing richly layered mixed media pieces that absorb, conceal, and integrate found objects to subsume them into a new ecosystem of the artist’s creation. In doing so, she gives old objects new life, resurrecting them through her act of transformation and allowing us to see them anew. As in the poem of the same name by William Cullen Bryant, in Thanatopsis, death is regarded as a necessary cleansing and reorganization of matter – rather than an end, it is a new beginning.
While death, loss, and the looming threat of environmental catastrophe can elicit a desire to see the world in black-and-white, Feit Covey’s work provides an alternative space where answers are not so straightforward. In Lichens and Other Extraterrestrials, dense layers of organic shapes can evoke biological references like tendons, neurons, roots or lichens while also feeling mysteriously alien. Feit Covey’s woodblock prints and found materials are woven seamlessly into each other, as a physical reminder of the webs of connection and responsibility – ecological, ethical, or scientific – that entangle us all. Operating in the space between absolutes, abstraction emerges as an authentic way to express ambiguity while also revealing the beauty and deeper meaning in its open-ended suggestions. The sticky, clumpy, and spiky surface of Touch Me If You Dare is temptingly tactile, while the title paradoxically warns the viewer against reaching out. At once beautiful and dangerous, it invokes the same visceral response that we feel when confronted with the sublime. Awe, curiosity, and fear mix together and swirl around, creating a heady concoction reminiscent of the psychologically challenging subjects addressed in Feit Covey’s earlier work.
Through a lifetime of producing meticulous wood engravings, paintings, and installations, Feit Covey has developed a sensibility for materials and composition that is on full display in her abstract compositions. She has repeatedly pushed the boundaries of printmaking to suit the intent of the project; in Thanatopsis II, she utilizes materials like packing paper, cardboard cups, and cooking molds in new ways to deepen her own engagement with objects. As we ponder the objects hidden from view, we engage in a sort of mental archaeology, attempting to unwind time by reversing Feit Covey’s act of building up the canvas through her deeply engaged studio practice. Ultimately, Feit Covey allows for the work to speak for itself, as extended looking reveals more insights and even more questions, opening up a personal dialogue with the viewer to find what they need within the depths of the work.