Marie Hagerty
New works 2005

Marie Hagerty is a painter of elegant abstract canvases that embrace qualities of design Tomescu rejects out-of-hand.  Hagerty’s palette is restricted to red, black and white but within those self-imposed boundaries she plays with shadows to create the illusion of three-dimensional forms.  The planes in a typical painting such as Red Duette or Rival Method II seem to overlap like sculpted cut-outs.  At best, this method has an ambiguity that keeps everything delicately balanced on the verge of some more precise recognition.

Hagerty’s paintings all feel like extreme close-ups.  If one could pull back, motion-picture style, each work might be revealed as a detail of a larger scheme.  Since that option is not available, the viewer has to take each canvas for what it is:  a game with surfaces, where sensuous, billowing forms alternate with razor-sharp edges to tantalise the eye and the mind.

- John McDonald

Extract from Sydney Morning Herald, Spectrum, September 2007.