Don Brown: Yoko V

Morgan Lehman Gallery, New York, October 26 to December 9, 2017.

Kim McCarty’s new watercolors are, as always, a masterclass in the “uncontrolled” controlled.

Her process involves working on wet paper, which gives her figures (mostly adolescents and botanical forms) this ghostly, translucent quality where the edges seem to be dissolving even as you look at them. There’s a specific kind of tension in these works; because the paint bleeds so freely, every mark feels like a gamble. In this new series, her palette remains muted. Washes of sepia, dusty rose, and bruised blues. These heighten the sense of vulnerability in her subjects. The figures aren’t just portraits; they are meditations on the instability of youth and the body. They feel less like solid things and more like memories that haven’t quite finished fading. It’s a beautiful, fragile show that reminds you how much power there is in the medium.