Spotlight on Guest Artist Kathy Soles
This post focuses on Kathy Soles guest artist this Month in the Gallery show Place and Memory: Two Views. You can see her finished work along with the work of Core Artist Iris Osterman tonight at the opening reception from 5-7 and through April 2 in the gallery.
Ideas....
Currently, my work is showing subtle changes, tighter spaces and abrupt junctions between marks, color, and new forms are emerging. All aspects of natural forms, real and imagined, are explored. References are the sky and land – a departure from water.
I am still mining the experience of an artist residency in Provincetown (C-Scape Dune Shack) The dune forms became the waves
I was recently awarded an artist residency at the Cill Rialaig Project on the west coast of Ireland. I suspect that the landscape of Bolus Head will present new ideas and forms.
Material and Process...
Initially, my work is a direct response to place. My paintings and drawings develop into a dialogue between dense accumulations of paint and drawing materials and open passages evoking light, air, and water. The accreted marks tell their own histories with a sense of urgency and vulnerability as they collide, dissipate, and reassemble. Layers of paint, applied with brushes and a brayer, expose and hide what is beneath the surface. Forms accentuate the surface only to be submerged. I work on stretched canvas on board. The rigid support allows for aggressive scraping and use of a brayer.
Inspiration....
Over the last eight years, the ocean has been a reoccurring theme in my work. Water as a transitory form, both a source of life and destruction, and the meditative and metaphorical possibilities found in contemplation of the ocean/water are at the heart of this work. Ocean currents, navigation routes, the junction of land and sea, the vast expanse of sky in relation to the sea, and what exists below the surface continue to spark my exploration. Formally, these investigations feed my ongoing interest in contradictions and dualities. Artist residencies on Paros Island, Greece, the Millay Colony, and the Goetemann residency in Rocky Neck, Gloucester have provided not only respite from teaching and family responsibilities, but have provided time for contemplation and the potential for new work.
I tend work in series. In the paintings and drawings, depth is plumbed in passages of water, air, and my interior landscape. Using the metaphorical implications of layering material, memory of place and experience is addressed.
