Milk

Moya McKenna's paintings bring a gestural sensibility to the realist tradition of still life. McKenna works from tableaus, which she constructs in her studio using materials immediately at hand. Her earlier compositions pursued a relatively literal mode of translation from sculptural assemblage to painted image. However, this process quickly gave way to a more organic and imaginative response to her sources, as can be seen in 'Milk'. Here, figure and ground are difficult to distinguish, and identifiable subjects - including a pot plant and model elephants - jostle with more ambiguous forms. The work's sense of energy is derived in part from McKenna's wet-on-wet technique: works are completed at pace, without allowing one layer of paint to dry before beginning the next.