Danielle Klebes
NOWHERE
October 29 – December 2
When I begin a painting, my attention is focused on the design of both the physical “space” as well as that of the painting. I create a situation on canvas by using paint to convey the idea or “symbol” of a room/scene/landscape. The spaces I depict are imagined and sourced from images found both in the real and digital world. My interest in creating these rooms grew first from an investigation of solitude and retreat, and then to a narrower focus on composition and more formal concepts. I consider color, pattern and texture in an architectural and art historical context when creating each work. My interest in both classical styles and modern designs create a scaffold for the space I want to construct. These decisions dictate the feeling and atmosphere of the space. In my work there is a fine line to be drawn between realism and design.
Making accommodations and room for experimentation often means a shift in materials. In the almost two years since the pandemic began, I have busied myself learning to quilt, paper mache, gardening and cooking. In turn, each has informed my paintings, drawings and sculptures. Over the summer, I traveled locally (and safely) in order to paint outdoors and take reference photos. This summer I took trips to Monhegan Island off the coast of Maine, Provincetown, Massachusetts and around my home state of Connecticut in order to get some fresh perspective. Through this process I have discovered an interest in location and the idiosyncrasies of a place. I have also revisited my relationship with abstraction with new floral and landscape-based paintings. Having varied interests in technique and subject has informed all elements of making work and I am taking the opportunity at the gallery to display pieces from all of these bodies of work.
Karen Dow was born in Buffalo, New York in 1966. She received a BA in Sculpture and Anthropology at Marlboro College in Vermont and later attended Brandies University in Massachusetts to study painting. In 1998, she graduated from the Yale School of Art with an MFA in painting and printmaking. While at Yale, Karen became very interested in Josef and Anni Albers and immediately began teaching Color and Design at Southern CT State University. This experience solidified her interest in this area and has remained a major influence in her painting and prints. Karen has exhibited her work in New England and Germany, most notably at Alpha Gallery in Boston, Bellwether gallery, the Armory Show, DC Moore in NY, and Giampietro Gallery in CT. She was the recipient of a Fine Arts Work Fellowship in Provincetown MA and won a Joan Mitchell Career Enhancement Grant in 2006. She enjoys traveling and teaching and exhibits her work locally and internationally. Currently, she teaches Printmaking and 2D design and Color at The Educational Center for the Arts in New Haven and screen printing at Southern CT State University. She lives and has a studio in Hamden, Ct.
Printmaking has always been a balance between responding to the materials I am working with and the intuitive knowledge of how to build or compose inside a square or rectangle. I generally work back to front, building a surface until all the shapes and colors convey a sense of purpose and place. I add and edit, recognize relationships, build support for a shape that appears too heavy, while continually hoping to keep the work open and breathing. If the work appears too choked up or densely packed, I’ll apply another layer of ink to open things up again.
In the beginning, shapes and lines are stacked from the bottom edge of a plexiglass plate or relief print and are piled up and out to reach the other sides. I am intrigued by how a shape will appear attached to an edge and the rest of the world inside the space will feel hinged or balanced upon this one decision. The narrative in my head as I am working is about precariousness and strength, the tension building as I add more. I also think about community and the relative dependence of one thing on another. There is tenderness in a gesture from one shape to the next; they lean, support, bear weight, and combine to create a path through the field of color.
This way of working is rooted in a strong desire to relay my feelings as well as allowing space for an emotional response to color relationships and form. In my efforts to communicate without using words or images, I find enormous freedom within the strict parameters I have set for myself. These parameters are directly inspired from my experiences in the Albright-Knox Art Gallery as a child. I spent many hours alone in the contemporary art wing exploring the Color Field Paintings of Agnes Martin, Morris Louis, and Frank Stella. To my young eyes this was a spiritual awakening and I felt very much at home with these works. Every Sunday, I walked around in the mirror room, by Lucas Samaras, and stared into that deep repetitive space. I found it both beautifully organized and chaotic at the same time. I know as a visual thinker; my aesthetic choices are directly related to these experiences. I seek clarity in chaos and am driven by organizing principles and constructing relationships. It is within these parameters that I know I will continue to develop my intuitive response to the printmaking process and find deep satisfaction as an artist. – Karen Dow
BPDL012, 2023
monoprint 20 x 18 in
For Marden 2, 2023
monoprint with collage 13 x 11 in
Flag Pattern, 2023
etching with chine cole 11 x 14 in
Small Stack (1), 2023
monoprint 10.5 x 10 in
The Other Side of May (1), 2023
monoprint with collage 20 x 18 in
Flow (1), 2023
woodcut 16 x 16 in
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description
Double Window with Flags
monoprint with collage 10.5 x 12 in
For Marden I, 2023
monoprint with collage 13 x 11 in
Open Window, 2023
monoprint with collage 10.5 x 12 in
Small Stack (2), 2023
monoprint 10.5 x 10 in
Box Grid (4), 2023
woodcut 20 x 18 in
Castle Grid (6), 2021
woodcut 13 x 11 in
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description
title
description
When I begin a painting, my attention is focused on the design of both the physical “space” as well as that of the painting. I create a situation on canvas by using paint to convey the idea or “symbol” of a room/scene/landscape. The spaces I depict are imagined and sourced from images found both in the real and digital world. My interest in creating these rooms grew first from an investigation of solitude and retreat, and then to a narrower focus on composition and more formal concepts. I consider color, pattern and texture in an architectural and art historical context when creating each work. My interest in both classical styles and modern designs create a scaffold for the space I want to construct. These decisions dictate the feeling and atmosphere of the space. In my work there is a fine line to be drawn between realism and design.
Making accommodations and room for experimentation often means a shift in materials. In the almost two years since the pandemic began, I have busied myself learning to quilt, paper mache, gardening and cooking. In turn, each has informed my paintings, drawings and sculptures. Over the summer, I traveled locally (and safely) in order to paint outdoors and take reference photos. This summer I took trips to Monhegan Island off the coast of Maine, Provincetown, Massachusetts and around my home state of Connecticut in order to get some fresh perspective. Through this process I have discovered an interest in location and the idiosyncrasies of a place. I have also revisited my relationship with abstraction with new floral and landscape-based paintings. Having varied interests in technique and subject has informed all elements of making work and I am taking the opportunity at the gallery to display pieces from all of these bodies of work.
BIO
Danielle Klebes lives and works at Wassaic Project in Wassaic, NY. Danielle has exhibited in notable galleries and museums throughout the United States, Europe, and Canada. These include Keeping Company (2023), a solo show at NARS Foundation in Brooklyn, NY, Midnight Adventure Club (2022), a solo show at AVA Gallery in Lebanon, NH, House Fire House Party (2020), a solo show at Installation Space in North Adams, MA, Aimless Pilgrimage (2020), a solo show at L’Atelier Silex Gallery in Trois- Rivières, Quebec, Canada, Fifty (2022), a group show at MoCA Jacksonville, Jacksonville, FL, Summer (2022), a group show at Galleri Christoffer Egelund in Copenhagen, Denmark, Portraiture Today (2021), a group show at the Springfield Museums, Springfield, MA, and Confluence of Tongues (2021), a group show at Grove Collective in London, UK. Danielle’s work has appeared on the cover of many publications including Cream City Review, Artscope Magazine, Studio Visit Magazine, Gertrude Press, and Prairie Schooner. Danielle received her MFA in Visual Arts from Lesley University College of Art and Design in Cambridge, MA, in 2017.
STATEMENT
NOWHERE is a series of paintings, sculptures, and shaped panels that feature a disorienting mixture of real and invented scenes. Like Walter Wick’s photographs in the I Spy books, Klebes’s paintings feature elaborately arranged objects with game-like repetition. A wall calendar from January 2023 with a glossy sports car and most days carefully ticked off appears in no less than four individual works. A painting of a salt lamp sitting on some books can be spotted again in a larger work hanging on the wall of a room. The individual objects seem to serve as proof, giving credibility to the invented spaces that they appear in.
Colorado Probably, 2023
oil on canvas 48 x 50 in
Orange House, 2023
oil on canvas 20 x 20 in
Calendar Car, 2023
oil on canvas 16 x 20 in
Big Horned Sheep, 2023
oil on panel 30 x 24 in
Target Practice, 2023
oil on panel 12 x 9 in
Life is Elsewhere, 2023
oil on panel 12 x 9 in
Salt Lamp
oil on panel 12 x 9 in
Room, 2023
oil on panel 7 x 7 1/2 in
Top Gun, 2023
oil on panel 24 x 20 in
Endless, 2023
oil ob panel 9 x 12 in
Bathroom, 2023
oil on panel 20 x 16 in
Corner, 2023
oil on canvas 20 x 20 in
SK8R Colorado, 2023
oil on panel 6 x 12 in
Almost the end of January and nothing even happened, 2023
oil on canvas 20 x 16 in
Living Room (nowhere), 2023
oil on canvas 24 x 30 in
Our broke down transportation, 2023
oil on panel 13 x 19 in
We ran it good, 2023
oil on panel 12 x 9 in
We could have lived in Killngton, 2023
oil on panel 12 x 12 in
You told me about Nowhere, 2023
oil on panel 12 x 12 in
Boots in Oregon, 2023
oil on panel 20 x 16 in
Hudson Valley Clouds, 2023
oil on panel 14 x 11 in
Watch Room, 2023
oil on panel 10 x 12 in
Girls Girls Girls, 2023
oil on panel 20 x 20 in