Featuring work by Kurt Ankeny, Linda Cordner, Rick Dorff, Sharon Kaitz, Mario Kon, Virginia Mahoney

Curated by Jennifer Liston Munson

As an artist-run gallery, Kingston is constantly in flux. We strive to create an environment of experimentation and growth and are happy to present a sampling of work by our six newest members.

Kurt Ankeny: These paintings represent the early stages of my reintroducing narrative into painting via the language of comics. By default, I suppose that makes it a strain of pop art but it’s not a loudmouthed huckster, three-ring-circus type of pop. I’m interested in using all the brush-language that has developed over the last sesquicentenary and keeping my color palette very in tune with our current estranged relationship with true darkness. 

Linda Cordner: My work explores the interplay of color, light and depth through a process of layering and abstracted geometry. These elements reflect my fascination with nature and the inevitable aging that all things undergo. Ultimately, my paintings serve as an exploration of emotion and memory, reminding me that nothing is constant but change.

Sharon Kaitz: The Pink Paintings were inspired by the pussy hats worn at The Women's March in Washington D.C. on January 21, 2017.

Mario Kon: The essential mystery of wood, the knots and weathered grain of its history, are the inspiration for my work. My approach to the material is aggressive as well as restorative. I carve, cut, and chip the layers as a means to reveal the secrets within. Dividing the space using lines and curves that, in time, become shapes, I feel an affinity for the visual tension that transforms space geometrically.

Virginia Mahoney: I weave life and memory into reclaimed netted produce packaging. My complex approach involves cutting old paintings into strips, writing or stitching on them excerpts from old sketchbooks, then weaving the strips into the netting, discovering new forms in the process. Words expose fears and doubts, but the very act of writing or stitching them is an affirmation. These contemplative moments of remembering, honoring, and preserving help to process uncertainty, change, and ruminations on aging. I hold on to where I have been, asserting and affirming power, self, mark, and agency.