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Gallery |
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Artist Statement:
Someone
once asked me to describe my art in ten words or less. I said : "I
paint people: mostly people in their underpants." It’s a joke, but
like most jokes, there is truth in it.
My paintings take a Midwestern sensibility to American eccentricity,
though the figures may be caught in a moment of unintentionally erotic
grappling or clad only in underpants, a prudishness remains. The
fabric of underpants might conceal, but but it also reveals. These
figures are plain, homely and vulnerable. Their imperfect physiques
are highlighted and their often bizarre actions open to scrutiny.
I work from found photographs, lost or discarded snippets of private
lives. Similarly, my paintings are fragments, deliberately and
glaringly unfinished. Large areas are left untouched; the painting
ground clearly visible, messy brushwork contrasting realistic,
academic portraiture. Figures are isolated, stripped of context,
exposed. The viewer is made to feel that they are peering into the
subject’s heavily curtained basements, revealing secret sexuality,
hidden ambitions, private poverty, and concealed illnesses, a
Midwestern Gothic |
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Selected Exhibitions: |
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2020 |
Kirsten Valentine, "Broken Play," Zg Gallery, Chicago, IL
Kirsten Valentine, "Ranch Style House," Merwin &
Wakeley Gallery, IL
Wesleyan College, Bloomington, IL
Collide, group show, Young Chicago Authors, Chicago, IL
Four Women, Zg Gallery, Chicago, IL |
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2019 |
Open Call, Delphian Gallery, London, England, U.K.
7th Annual Art Competition, Bridgeport Art Center, Chicago, IL
Pizza in the Rain: Landscapes, group show, Vertical Gallery, Chicago,
IL
Work@ Play: group show, Zg Gallery, Chicago, IL
7th Annual Art Competition, Bridgeport Art Center, Chicago, IL |
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2018 |
The Other Art Fair Chicago, Mana Contemporary, Chicago, IL
Tiny Acts Topple Empires, Woskob Family Gallery,
State College, PA curator: Heather D. Bhandari
6th Annual Art Competition, Bridgeport Art
Center, Chicago, IL |
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2017 |
Bombay Sapphire Artisan Series, Gallery Guichard, Chicago, IL
Nasty Woman, Stan Mansion, Chicago, IL |
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2015 |
Un86’d, Sportsman Club, Chicago, IL |
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2014 |
Sing The Body Electric, Saatchi Online, online exhibition |
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2011 |
Kirsten Valentine: Fight!, Solo Exhibition, Chicago Art Department,
Chicago, IL
Cultural Excavation, Chicago Art Department, Chicago, IL |
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2010 |
200, Chicago Art Department, Chicago, IL |
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Publications:
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2019 |
The Beautiful People, Interview with Kirsten Valentine,
ProvkMag.com, 2019
Barzakh, Issue 11, May 11, 2019
Quarter Marks, Volume 6, August 2019 |
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2018 |
Kirsten Valentine,
Create Magazine, March 7, 2018, Issue VIII
Noble/Gas Quarterly, Issue 205.1, March 22, 2018
The Figure and Power Dynamics: Interview with Kirsten
Valentine, Create Magazine, 3/7/18
Kirsten Valentine: Dark and Dreamy, Howl Magazine, April 3,
2018 |
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