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Artist Statement:
ARTIST STATEMENT BY JANIS
KIRSTEIN
2008: My most recent body of
works reflect the ongoing
struggle and challenge of
survival in the 21st century
as a United States citizen and
resident.
2006: This body of artwork
concerns the conflict faced by
both Japanese and American
society by the cultural
pressures ...
Further Information
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Artist Exhibitions:
JANIS ADRIAN KIRSTEIN
___________________________
janiskir@bellsouth.net
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
ZEPHYR GALLERY. Louisville,
KY. June, 2008.
ZEPHYR GALLERY. Louisville,
KY. June, 2004.
JOHN HARRIMAN GALLERY,
PERUVIAN BRITISH CULTURAL
CENTER. Lima, Peru. August
2002.
ZEPHYR GALLERY. Louisville,
KY. June 2002.
ZEPHYR GALLERY. Louisville,
KY. 2000.
ANNE WRIGHT WILSON ART
GALLERY. Georgetown
College...
Further Information
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Artist Galleries:
Zephyr Gallery in Louisville,
KY. url for web site:
www.zephyrgallery.org...
Further Information
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Collections:
Coming Soon!
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Commissions:
Coming Soon!
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Reviews for Janis Kirstein:
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REVIEW: DIALOGUE MAGAZINE, MARCH 1989
By Maggie Meloy
Night, as encountered by Jan Kirstein, is a time that inspires vision. It seems to have opened the artist's eyes to emotional and visual vistas which she explores in 24 new paintings and drawings that make up the exhibit,"In the Night."
The warm colors of sunlight are banished from most of Kirstein's paintings. Black is predominant; but the paintings are far from being dull or gloomy. Black rectangular fields are shot through with cold flashes of silver and fuchsia in spirit with neon yellows and blues conjuring up the brilliance of an eerie cosmic light show. The most successful works in the exhibit, four paintings from the "Sirius" series, take us on a journey into the far reaches of the night sky to glalaxies of furious, clashing energies. The black rectangle of "Sirius II", for instance, is traversed by rushing pink and silver laser-like beams whose collisions form stormy planes of dense, turbulent brushstrokes. As the planes pull apart they leave a lone fuchsia plume floating in their wake amongst a sprinkling of starlike speckles.
If the paintings in the "Sirius" series evoke outer space,they just as easily refer to inner space. Approached from the point of view of Exprssionism, the energized elements of the "Sirius" paintings can be understood as embodiments of emotional rather than stellar dramas.
The vehement energies generated by the clashing geometric forms, the tumultuous brushstrokes, the spattered droplets of paint, all suggest that Kirstein desceends from a long line of Expressionists from Kandinsky to De Kooning.
An Abstract Expressionist connection is confirmed by the series "Childhood Memories." Larger than the "Sirius" paintings, these huge black fields are dense with obsessive linear graffiti overlaid by coarse, heavy strokes that suggest primitive, scrawled pictographs. Crawing and convulsing with movemement, they are painted in colors suggestive of lurid night visions. In "Childhood Memories III" the black space is enmeshed in delicate, tangled webs of silver paint crushed by thick, bold strokes of purple, pink and blue. The paintings in the "Childhood Memories" series are immensely successful as powerful incantations of the unrelenting garbled chatter of childhood ghosts that haunt one during the midnight hours. However, to the viewer searching for complete originality, they will seem derivative of the action painters of the 50s.
About half of the show is comprised of very small collages of mixed media and acrylic that are interesting because they seem to be the starting point from which the full scale paintings develop. Taken on their own, however, they are too small to be vehicles for the ferocious energies that make the large paintings so impressive.
There are several small collages, such as "Joy 1" that stand apart from the rest of the work. Their bright colors and cavorting patterns, faintly reminiscent of the cut-outs of Matisse, suggest that Kirstein may be intering a new phase. If these works are an indication of a future direction, Kirstein may be preparing to leave the night behind, heading for the joyful brilliance of daylight.
Maggie Meloy is an art history professor and free lance writer living in Louisville, KY.
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