WILL KARR
Staff Writer
Growing up, SUNY Fredonia student Charlotte Mahaffy always knew that she wanted to be an artist. However, she never imagined that it would actually be a realistic or attainable possibility.
“When I grew up, I was like, ‘I think I want to be an artist,’” Mahaffy said. “But then you get squashed real quickly with [statements] like ‘that’s not a real career’ and ‘that’s not a reality.’”
Mahaffy is a junior drawing and painting major from Long Island. Her artwork was recently on display in a solo-exhibition titled “Moving Land” in the Emmitt Christian Gray Gallery of the Rockefeller Arts Center. The gallery gives art students the opportunity to showcase work in a professional setting and environment. “Moving Land” is Mahaffy’s first independent art show. The exhibit opened with a reception on Sept. 19th.
When Mahaffy first came to SUNY Fredonia, she majored in political science. However, after losing her passion and enthusiasm for politics, she eventually decided to switch her major to painting and drawing. She describes the transition as going from a “practical” to a more “impractical” career path.
“There’s no point in sitting around, doing something you hate because you think it’s the most reasonable path that will bring you some version of success, happiness and stability,” Mahaffy said. “I’d rather be unstable, happy and doing something that I like everyday with the prospect that maybe I won’t have what I need for tomorrow. At least, I am doing something that I like at the moment.”
Mahaffy often draws inspiration from life’s moments, the environment and the continually growing landscapes around us. The exhibit features work from across different artistic mediums, including paintings, drawings, ceramics and sculptures.
Mahaffy explained that she likes to depict natural landscapes, scenes and environments in her pieces. She describes herself as a landscape painter, but is now welcoming other mediums into her repertoire.
“Some people love drawing man-made structures with sharp geometric lines,” Mahaffy said. “But, for me, it’s stressful to draw something that is technically correct. I’d rather just paint whatever seems right in my mind.”
Nature is often the first thing that comes to Mahaffy’s mind. From mountains and clouds to trees and flowers, she tries to incorporate what she considers to be the best elements of nature into her work. In her sculptures, she showcases the expansiveness of nature, which contrasts the confines of her rectangular and square paintings.
“We can try to fit a landscape into a one by two box, but it’s never going to make complete sense. It’s never going to totally fit,” Mahaffy said. “So, playing with organic shapes and textures has been really exciting because it shows how land is in layers and how we experience it isn’t just a one-flat box.”
In the exhibit, Mahaffy juxtaposes larger canvases with smaller scale pieces.
“Painting small can be less stressful because you can think less about it,”she said. “But it’s also exciting at times to do something really huge, tangible and physical.”
Mahaffy draws inspiration for her work from Instagram, travel blogs and other artists. However, the landscapes and images she paints are primarily created from her own memories and recollections, rather than actual landscapes and references images.
“[The images I create] are not solid things; it’s never really a stagnant thing that I am looking at,” she said. “This is just how I am trying to remember it.”
However, as time passes by, memories and recollections are often flawed, fleeting and incomplete.
“Life is moving by really quickly. I think that the motion is really reflected in my paintings,” Mahaffy said. “I love that we’re all just kind of growing through life.”
Mahaffy creates fictionalized landscapes. She said that there are only about three paintings of real landscapes in the show.
Overall, Mahaffy believes that it can be beautiful to stop relying on photographs and references, and to start tapping into the extremities of the human mind and memory. She is thankful to have a space to showcase her work and vision to the campus community at Fredonia.
“The gallery is a great place for me to display my work,” Mahaffy said. “… We need more art on this campus.”
