McBride / Dillman is thrilled to present Splat Daisies, a solo exhibition of dreamlike paintings and sculpture by Sarah Alice Moran, opening on April 10th with a reception from 6–8 pm and running through May 10th. Splat is a cartoon word and the spaces in these paintings draw on that system of suspended rationale. By loosening the rules of scale, gravity, and time, Moran creates dreamy pastoral scenes where humans, animals, and nature coexist without hierarchy. The show explores the quiet, almost mystical bonds between humans and animals, and the ways they shape our emotional lives.

Moran paints wet-on-wet, letting thin washes of color blend and bleed across the canvas. Sunflowers dissolve into daisies, shadows become shapes, and light seemingly glows from the flowers themselves. Her compositions balance the elastic logic of cartoons with a sophisticated command of color and atmosphere. Figures, rainbows, and blossoms appear in different configurations while animals move through these spaces less as narrative agents but  as symbolic or devotional presences.

Among them, inevitably, is the artist’s dog Pepper. Pepper died early in the making of this series, and her prolonged illness ushered in an extended period of anticipatory grief. During this time, Moran found solace in researching ancient Roman dog epitaphs—concise, tender monuments that affirmed the endurance of this bond across millennia.

The result is a body of work that is a meditation on companionship, loss, and remembrance—a garden for Pepper to inhabit and for the artist herself to heal within. Two large-scale column paintings, inspired by the artist’s research on ancient Rome, create an architectural space - a temple - for the sculptures to operate as a shrine, and visitors are encouraged to bring their dogs; milk bones will be provided.