Summer Idylle

About

SUMMER IDYLLE features lavish geometric paintings by Hayley Youngs, Debbi Kenote’s abstractions, playful yet mysterious takes on natural and anthopomorphic forms, the subtly painted abstractions by Jenny Kemp, focussing on lines and pattern, and the refined yet bold oils by Katie Neece.

Formally rooted in abstraction, Debbi Kenote’s paintings and drawings take on both natural and anthropomorphic forms. The works are playful, yet they also have an air of mystery and at times, conjure the unsettling feeling of peering into an unknown space. Originally from the Pacific Northwest, Kenote was educated in a homeschooled environment, where she was able to create installations within the nature surrounding her parent’s farm. Growing up in a rural but exciting setting, it wasn’t until the age of 18 that she visited her first art museum. Kenote often references these memories of isolated play in nature, and the imaginative worlds she created before being introduced to the idea of fine art. Her paintings and drawings have a geometric underpinning, and are frequently divided by an outer border that surrounds a shape in the center. The bright shapes and upbeat borders are belied by darker forms that resemble dense forests. I choose to use light in ways that help to create distinct moods in the work. These precise transitions between inner and outer forms push the viewer to question if they are looking into—or out of—the works. 

Brooklyn-based painter Hayley Youngs creates lavish geometric paintings, alluding to a realm beyond the physical world, both philosophically and spiritually. Employing a visual language of esoteric shapes and curvilinear motifs, she navigates a mystical pictorial space, governed by symmetry, color, and intuitive  precision. With a mission to “find the calm within the chaos” amidst a wildly turbulent sociopolitical climate, Youngs’ ongoing series of  Rorschach-esque works metaphorize humanity’s journey into the unknown  and the societal transformation taking shape in our modern historical  moment. Drawing stylistic influence from Art Deco, Psychedelia, and  Visionary art traditions, these kaleidoscopic abstractions are a timely  reflection of the universal desire for balance and positivity, serving  as a safe haven for comfort, collective meditation, introspection, and  re-orientation.  

Using traditional oil painting techniques that rely on nuanced physical touch and demanding skill, Katie Neece’s work incorporates imagery from computer graphics software programs and related digital ephemera. She creates an artificial pictorial space using gradients, drop shadows, and flat areas to construct an illusionistic environment within the conventions of the screen and digital manifestations of space. Choosing to paint the digital constructions draws attention to both advancements in technology and the advancements in the historical trajectory of painting.

Neece uses the pictorial language of geometric abstraction among the early 20th century European avantgarde, while simultaneously focusing on 90’s American mall aesthetic, pop culture and design aesthetic. She incorporates and uses these forms as a reference to an inherent optimism in a utopian future that has continually failed to materialize. This re-contextualization is an attempt to illustrate that the past continually reminds us of the future’s failure in the form of haunting.

Jenny Kemp’s paintings focus on line and pattern and its ability to embody conduits for trains of thought. Creating rhythmic spaces where compositions begin with a revelatory moment and grow into a reactionary process in which linear marks thread, converse and evolve into teeming forms. Housed within evocative shapes that reference personal events and musings, these become visual manifestations of discovery, habitude, and navigation.