EXHIBITIONS
November 3 - 28, 2021
Opening Reception: Friday, November 5, 6-8 pm
Christine Kyle: “Visual Concepts”
Dietlind Vander Schaaf: “We Are Poems”
Amantha Tsaros: “Feral Joy”
“Hold the Light,” wood, ceramic, wire, beeswax, damar resin, paint, pigment, 14.5” x 10” x 7”
Christine Kyle: “Visual Concepts”
I make peculiar, mixed media, wall sculptures that evoke a sense of familiarity while resisting categorization.
“Dusk III” (detail), 24" x 24", encaustic, oil, and 23 karat gold leaf on panel, 2021.
Dietlind Vander Schaaf: “We Are Poems”
My work references teachings from Zen Buddhism, Christian mysticism, the poetic traditions, and contemplative practices including yoga and meditation. I create paintings that convey an emotional tone through texture, pattern, and mark making in order to communicate what I find most lovely, haunting, and curious about the human condition. I am influenced by writings on meditation and quiet by Pico Iyer, Jon Kabat-Zinn, David Hinton, and Gordon Hessler, as well as the minimal work of artists Agnes Martin, Hiroyuki Hamada, and Zarina Hashmi. The Japanese word jikan refers to the silence between two thoughts. In this vein, I attempt to render temporary, fleeting moments of balance and stillness visible.
My paintings celebrate the beauty I find everywhere - from dense urban cityscapes to quiet forest paths and bodies of water that reflect an ever changing sky. I think of my work as visual poems in which repeated lines, brushstrokes, and marks signify breath, light, reflection, movement, change, and thought, and that placed together in multiples, engage in a form of communion with one another.
Some of my paintings rely on forms observable in the natural world, which I have distilled to geometric patterns and then further deconstructed. Others are responses to field studies involving physical experience and sound recordings. Each painting is built up through multiple layers of encaustic medium and fused together with a torch. The result is a painting that has both optical depth and physical presence - more object-like and less strictly 2-D.
“Parades and Popsicles,” acrylic on canvas, 30” x 40”, 2019
Amantha Tsaros: “Feral Joy”
These are paintings of lively forms and vibrant hues cavorting playfully in an invitation to indulge in optimism.