Simple Complexity - Anna Kunz at Tory Folliard Gallery article by Ben Bowman for Susceptible to Images, November 24, 2007.
Tory Folliard gallery in Milwaukee’s Third Ward was recently split in half. Not literally, that is, but the gallery was divided to display two shows. On the north half was Elizabeth Shreve’s Paintings and Drawings and on the sourthern half was Anna Kunz’s Greens, Violets, Browns, on view through November 17. Kunz, a Chicago based artist who teaches at the School of the Art Institute, makes works that are colorful and physical. Her pieces depict common objects from nature shown in blocks of color.
Kunz’s show was comprised of oil paintings and paper assemblages. The paintings are somewhat large, typically in the neighborhood of two to three feet by four to five feet. The paper pieces, on the other hand, are smaller than a foot. The broad visual theme of the show is abstracted visions of nature. Trees, fields, and skies can often be detected within the paintings. Those objects, however, are merely the starting points. Images are broken into shapes of color, often with the result of creating several large areas of negative space counter-balanced by small areas of very active positive space.
Following somewhat of a cubist lineage, Kunz’s works break down images into their barest forms. As declared in a statement from Chicago’s Zg Gallery, by breaking down the appearance of objects, Kunz is able to use the discrepancy between the actual object and its depiction to “examine relationships between the object and the subject, the ambiguous with the metaphorical, the ‘real’ with the illusion.” By depicting such common objects as forests and trees, the artist immediately has a subject matter to which the viewer can relate. With those common objects, Kunz is able to present objects that look like mere blocks of color. However, such a simple presentation leads the viewer to wonder what is missing. The result, therefore, is that the viewer reacts by re-examining their own surroundings.
The paper pieces are made with opaque sheets staked on top of one another. Likewise, the oil paintings are made with many thick layers of paint stacked on top of each other. Consequently, the artist is using the two different mediums to a fairly similar means. The paintings, however, have a much greater depth than the assemblages.
Within all of the paintings, the viewer can clearly see evidence of Kunz’s process. Globs of paint from the under layers dot the painting’s surface. Brushstrokes and paint drips sit on the painting surfaces as well. Some passages even contain areas where the paint is not quite as thick. Those parts of the canvas reveal hints of the radically different hues just under the top layers of the painting.
With such large areas of color and such an emphasis on the process of the piece, one cannot help but conjure Richard Diebenkorn’s Ocean Park paintings when considering Kunz’s work. For instance, Kunz’ Echo (oil on panel; 49 x 45”) is compositionally quite similar to Diebenkorn’s Ocean Park No. 87 (1975; oil on canvas; 100 x 81”). Both images display a vast amount of space in the lower right quadrant of the painting while the upper left quadrant is fully active with shapes of color. Both artists also make their practice of working and re-working a painting quite visible.
Despite their similarities, though, the artist’s certainly aim for different outcomes. Diebenkorn is able to mix airy colors that carry the viewer deep into the painting as if they were passing through a colored fog. In encountering Kunz’s works, the viewer is more challenged to get into the space of the piece, as if trying to push past a wall of green. Also, Diebenkorn’s pieces exist as a way of examining the phenomena of light, whereas Kunz’s paintings exist to examine objects and the viewer’s relationships with those objects.
Ultimately, the viewer comes away from Kunz’s works with a bit more sensitivity towards the objects that she paints. However, that sensitively goes beyond just those common objects found in the park. One cannot help but start to notice any number of objects as being more complex than they initially seem. One of the most fascinating elements of Kunz’s pieces is that by depicting often seen objects in a simple way; the viewer is forced to question how well they know the objects in question. Kunz’s simple forms lead the viewer to their own complex relationships with their surroundings. Simplicity in this case causes complexity.
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