Answer them yourself, says artist Grace Kennedy
The exhibit, Colorforms, by Grace Kennedy at Buster Levi Gallery in Cold Spring is disorienting due to odd cropping and strange angles. Its macabre, mixed-media works with disconnected figures may trigger a lot of questions, but don’t expect many answers.
“The whole point is to be perplexing — it’s not my job to tell you what it is,” says Kennedy, who lives in Garrison. “There’s nothing to tell anyway.”
She created one of the works a day before the exhibit’s March 1 opening, after being told that the display would look better with another piece. She had nothing in the same vein and dashed one off on the fly. Two women who toured the gallery with intent on Saturday picked it as their favorite.
Of the exhibit’s 11 oil paint-with-collage pieces, seven depict interiors, some of which are dark, spooky and cramped, like the walls are closing in. A piece inspired by the civil war in Syria, “Doorknob,” is the brightest and most upbeat.
Kennedy also designs gardens, which she maps out like blueprints. Here, her view is nearly always slanted downward. Each piece in the informal series begins with the floor. “That turns it into an interesting shape instead of a plane or an overhead,” she explains.
In several pieces, including a bathroom floor study, “Chinese Dancers,” angles are askew. As the wall and doorframe tilt the perspective, the focus is on four shoes. Another recurring motif is a scratchy texture created with a hard-bristle brush that looks like the result of scraping with a sharp instrument.
The show’s title refers to a toy with vinyl cutouts of shapes or characters that can be arranged on a background scene. It took a fervid imagination to make the characters come alive.
Kennedy cut her figures from an 8-year-old copy of The New York Times Magazine because the ink dissolves well with solvent and she liked the subject matter. Many resemble blobs after being manipulated and painted over.
According to gallery notes written by Bill Kooistra, another Buster Levi member, the pieces are like stage sets that give an impression that “the viewer has unexpectedly come upon some drama.”
In “Angel” (many titles are enigmatic), a handful of detached people appear to be loitering in an alley. As with other images, no one is looking at anyone else.
Why are they there, and what are they doing? In “Pond,” is that Bigfoot? Why is one work called “Decision,” and why is a person standing on a giant red ball as he hurtles toward a crowded … beach?
Interiors elicit claustrophobia. A giant red ball blocks the portal in “Doorway,” yet doors and windows abound. Why?
“To give them someplace to go,” says Kennedy. Where are they going? “I don’t know. Out?”
Buster Levi Gallery, at 121 Main St. in Cold Spring, is open from noon to 5 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday, or by appointment. See busterlevigallery.com. Colorforms continues through March 30.
