LISA KELLNER
Inspired by nature, history and the spaces humans create for themselves, my paintings conflate place and structure with memory and perception. I draw upon the experiences of place, seeking to distill the natural world and our perception of things down to their very essence.
Though the work is abstract and minimal, it is anchored in the real. The slight angle of a tree trunk, a series of telephone lines or a particular pattern of current flow within a body of water become communicators of emotion, feeling and experiential place. My work is concerned with activating this space both in the painting and in the viewer.
The Deconstructed Paintings (wall sculptures) further distill the elements of space down to a sculptural construction in which light, shadow and negative space become a part of the work. They activate the negative space between shapes, incorporating them into the “painting”. Shadows from each shape also become part of these Deconstructed Paintings. Particular constraints are employed in order to focus on essential connections between form, color and composition. These relationships compel the viewer to think about the organization of space and how it changes our response to what we are looking at.
