Halsey McKay Gallery is pleased to present Took A Walk, a solo exhibition of oil paintings on a panel by Aubrey Saget on view in the upstairs gallery. Highlighting Saget’s distinct brushwork and touch, Took A Walk features a series of new works that depict painterly snapshots of wildflowers, landscapes, and thickets of botanica. This is Saget’s first solo show with the gallery.

Saget’s process begins by noticing the fleeting moments in our hurried lives. She takes hasty camera phone photos along her daily commute, during routine errands, and while on head-clearing walks that loop through her Brooklyn neighborhood.

Her images are transient, intimate, and nature-centric: A flower garden during a seasonal transition. A fallen tree trunk resting on a bed of moss under cerulean blue skies. A mosaic of emerald and spring green leaves jagging up stem lines that fragment through the composition. Blossoms of ruby red, butter yellow, and sour pink-toned flowers are peppered against a slate grey background. Back in her studio, these quickly photographed glimpses are slowed down through study and sketching, then carefully transformed into painted scenes of ephemeral beauty.

There is a cadence in how Saget controls the flow of her paint. Working wet-on-wet, she pulls, wipes away, and drags her pigments with thoughtful intent. This approach allows background colors to slip and melt into the foreground. Directional brushwork and layering become strategies for organizing space.

The results of this method are a wonderful glassiness and aurora to her marks. Edges are carved and crisp. Gestures become twisting ribbons and rhythmic hits of form. Colors bend and blend, while depth and mood collapse into an atmosphere of poetic stillness. The franticness of contemporary life is brought to a calm in Saget’s paintings. Our gaze is tempered and narrowed in as we reflect on time and place, and what we’re passing by as we move through our days.

Aubrey Saget was born in New York City, grew up in Los Angeles, and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Saget is the co-founder of Studio 200 NYC–an artist-run collective that organizes traveling exhibitions, performances, and interdisciplinary workshops. She has recently exhibited her paintings at Halsey McKay Gallery, Studio 200 NYC, 3Walls, and A.I.R. Gallery in New York. She has also participated at NADA Miami with the Charles Moffett Gallery. Saget holds a BFA and MFA from New York University.