Maysey Craddock has long been fascinated by ruin. The ephemeral quality so richly sewn into her current body of work, began with her childhood interest in searching for fossils at the edge of rivers or uncovering contents of forgotten drawers, always intent on discovering what came before, what once was. Craddock’s large-scale gouache paintings reference spaces in similar states; a landscape left to its own devices, crumbling structures, transformation, and natural entropy. Working from photographs, Craddock intricately transfers her imagery onto found materials and carefully builds the surface with layers of paint, eventually revealing the bigger picture. She compares her process to a familiar expression; “There is a chunk of time where I am only seeing the trees, and then towards the end I begin to stand back more, and try to see the forest. It becomes a balance between light and dark, the contrast of tight color and washy strokes, all weaving together until I feel, instinctually, that the painting has achieved the perfect harmony and tension. The built paper and the unbuilt image merge.”

Maysey Craddock (b. 1971) has a BA in Sculpture and Anthropology from Tulane University, Newcomb College, New Orleans, LA and an MFA from the Maine College of Art, Portland, ME. She has received numerous honors and awards, including the Louisiana Division of the Arts Artist Grant, Tennessee Arts Commission Visual Artist Grant, Oberpfälzer Künstlerhaus, Schwandorf, Germany Residency Grant, St. Mary’s School, Memphis TN Residence Grant, LSU Union Art Gallery Honorable Mention for Circus Anvil, Arkansas Arts Center Honorable Mention for Field Anvil, as well as the Newcomb College Class of 1915 Award for Excellence in Studio Art and the Rusty Collier Memorial Award for Excellence in Studio Art. Her work is included in numerous permanent collections including: The Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis, TN, Music City Center, Nashville, TN, St. Mary’s Episcopal School, The Assisi Foundation, Pfizer Corporation, Federal Express, Nordstrom Inc., First Bank, and The Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AR.