The Washington Post

In the galleries: A meeting of lines in art and architecture

“Drifting Waters” seems too mild a title for Mary Armstrong’s show of violently luminous paintings at Cross MacKenzie Gallery. These seas are roiling and boldly colored, sometimes in oranges and pinks that suggest lava more than water, and mirrored by skies that are just as turbulent and dramatically hued. Indeed, the horizon line is often murky, suggesting that ocean and air are not really divided. They can appear part of a single churning mass, more akin to Jupiter than Earth.

Mark Jenkins

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/museums/in-the-galleries-a-meeting-of-lines-in-art-and-architecture/2014/08/28/fee61d96-2c22-11e4-be9e-60cc44c01e7f_story.html

The Washington Post

Galleries gathering again in once arty Georgetown

For Rebecca Cross, whose Cross MacKenzie was on Dupont’s R Street gallery row for three years, her new location is a return to Georgetown. She first opened in 2006 in Canal Square, the south-of-M Street complex that once held a half-dozen galleries. Her relocated gallery took the place of Heiner Contemporary, whose owner, Margaret Heiner, moved to Connecticut when her husband took a job there.

“What I think is very helpful is being near all these antique shops where people are thinking about their homes,” says Cross, who finds Wisconsin Avenue much livelier than R Street.

Traffic from one dealer to the next “is already happening,” she notes. “Somebody came to my gallery this morning, and she said, ‘Well, I saw something I really liked at Sue Calloway’s gallery, but it was sold, and so I’m looking for a painting.’ She came to mine next, and she probably went to Addison/Ripley after that. And that’s great.”

Mark Jenkins

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/museums/galleries-gathering-again-in-once-arty-georgetown/2014/08/07/e7c8e700-1b7f-11e4-9b6c-12e30cbe86a3_story.html

The Georgetowner

A Midsummer Night's Gallery Guide

The painter Mary Armstrong creates ethereal landscapes that shift between the ground, water and air, exploring the symbiotic relationship between the earth and it’s atmosphere, evoking a sense of both serenity and turmoil. Her abstract interpretations of a landscapes are informed by 19th century painting approaches, yet her method of scraping through luscious wax and oils on panel in order to reveal hyped-up colors from underneath lend her work a decidedly contemporary resonance.

Ari Post

http://www.georgetowner.com/articles/2014/aug/06/midsummer-nights-gallery-guide/

The Washington Post

In the Galleries: Creating objects of power

There are some expansive works in Cross MacKenzie Gallery’s new group exhibition, but that doesn’t directly explain why the show is called “Space.” The title refers to Cross MacKenzie’s new Georgetown quarters, which are much larger than its previous Dupont Circle digs. (The storefront used to house Heiner Gallery, whose proprietor relocated to Connecticut.) There’s room for large canvases and an example of Walter McConnell’s altar-like assemblages of kitsch ceramic figurines that dwarfs anything in the gallery’s 2013 McConnell show.

Mark Jenkins

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/in-the-galleries-creating-objects-of-power/2014/06/26/40a76adc-faaa-11e3-b836-a372189b76a6_story.html