Aschely Vaughan Cone
Region: MFA Annual
City / State: Baltimore, MD
Using the arch and the shield as recurring motifs, my paintings
investigate notions of entry and obstruction, access and denial.
The arch spans spatial depth and denotes a passageway or entry/
exit. It suggests an opening, an absence, a possible future; it is
passive. The shield obstructs, conceals, protects, represents; it is
frontal, present, and active.
Both the central form/void and the peripheral form/void function
as interdependent realms. They are either éndon (within: interior,
inside, familiar) or éxo (outside: exterior, without, foreign). The
reading of one as solid form or spatial void is related to reading
the other as its opposite. Engaging the viewer’s body, the largescale
canvases reinforce an association with architecture—and
literal passageway or obstruction.
The work is dependent on how one locates and identifies the
relationship between interior and exterior. Pivoting between arch/
void or shield/form, the painting hovers in a state of suspension,
withholding and unfolding, collapsing and expanding; no single
reading is exclusive of another.