Jud Fine and Barbara McCarren

Jud Fine and Barbara McCarren are the first to say they are “poles apart” in their creative process. Fine begins with “clarity” and arrives at “complexity” while McCarren begins with “complexity” and arrives at “clarity.” It is by no means a natural or easy effort for this artistic dyad to work from opposite poles. Their choice of subject matter inevitably parallels the significant role that forces of opposition play in the process of creation.

More than 20 collaborative artworks by McCarren/Finewill be on view in AND/OR. Three photo-collage installations from the Currency series will be re-created for the first time in Southern California. Their latest collaborative endeavor, Continental Edge Dwellers, will occupy the remaining galleries. In this new series, McCarren/Fine address land (the beach), water (the sea), and the line of division (the coastal shore). To dwell on the continental edge is to occupy some of the most exclusive and expensive space on the planet, as well as the most fragile and threatened. Unique conditions arise at the edge to affect individuals living there, but also the entire world. For both artists, the impenetrability of the sea versus the intimacy and comfort of a land-based society speaks metaphorically to human constraint and provides the two with an infinite field for imaginative expanse.

Exhibition overview from museum website