Madeline A. Stratton
What We Forgot to Remember
July 6 – July 28, 2019
Madeline A. Stratton’s work is an investigation of the memory and the importance of domestic objects and spaces. Utilizing traditional media such as paint, textiles, thread, and printmaking, Stratton challenges herself to create representations stemming from her memory. By creating silhouettes of objects and simplified structures of empty spaces, Stratton aims to convey both absence and belonging. She searches for ways to memorialize and find comfort in the objects of daily rituals and the spaces in which they take place. While drawing from places and times specific to herself, Stratton hopes the viewer can enter into a reflective journey of their own space and memory.
“What We Forgot to Remember” is a new body of work that continues Stratton’s exploration with the materials and the visual language she uses in representing interiors from her past. With both the sculptural paintings and minimalist
sculptures shown here, she aims to push a 2D representation of a physical space back into a 3D realm. Colors and patterning in the work come from direct references to the objects that occupied these interiors. Void of human presence, they invite the viewer to create their own story about what transpired in these places.
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Madeline A. Stratton was born in 1987 in Memphis, TN. She is a multidisciplinary artist living and working in Washington, DC. In 2018, she completed her Multidisciplinary MFA in the Mount Royal School of Art at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), where she received a Merit Scholarship. She holds a MA in History of Art and the Art Market: Modern and Contemporary from Christie’s Education in New York, NY and a BA in Studio Art and History of Art from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN. Prior to pursuing her MFA, Stratton worked as a museum specialist in the Modern Prints and Drawings Department at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. She also served as the cataloguer for the Prints and Multiples Department at Christie’s in New York. She has exhibited in Nashville, New York, Baltimore, and Philadelphia. She was 2018 Keyholder Resident at Pyramid Atlantic Art Center in Hyattsville, MD, and is currently a member of the Sparkplug collective at DC Arts Center.
