Each of the artists in Skin to Skin are pulled between an urge to question the nature of abstraction and accepting that the answers don’t ultimately matter. The process of making and the process of looking are the same, pulling like a turnbuckle into an imagined center. This creates a constant tension between time spent, time stolen; time to make a mark, and time to let the absence of action, form, and space to activate everything else.
All three artists explore these unstable realms of legibility, space (taking up), gesture and touch. The residues of their searches are distinct but diverse. Kaveri Nair is forever seeking, never repeating, building airy elbow room for the lightest touch. Her marks appear suspended, embedded in herconfident optimism. Kaylee Rae Wyant invents absurd yet logical totems that only appear solid for a moment before deforming and dissolving. The touch here is a relentless slow burn, depicting objects within unfolding objects that constantly break down and reform. The shapes in Niki Kriese’s paintings migrate between object and void, presence and absence, in an interplay only interrupted by the canvas edge and any action that might spill into the offscreen void. Elements of drawing give perspective to the soupy space, reinforcing the presence of the artist’s hand. Finally, the precise gestures push, pull, jostle, and destabilize the natural urge to recognize and label their formal components.
All the work in Skin to Skin is evidence of a relationship to the world and other people. What have become universal impulses of abstract painting are shaped by coastal winds and lapping waters. By regional idioms and the colors of the shores. So many marks, gestures, and forms looking to bridge space and time.
Isn’t all art an attempt to connect minds and bodies to the space beyond?
The paintings in the exhibition invite you to step inside in a bid for intimate conversation with a hand on an arm, and a breathy whisper in an unexpecting ear.