Tamar Kander + Amy Kirchner: Silence and Sunlight opens in Long-Sharp Gallery Indianapolis. Two of the gallery's most popular painters join together to showcase their newest works. Kander, who calls herself a citizen of the world, was born in Israel, grew up in South Africa, and was formally trained at Goldsmith's in London; she lives in Nashville, Indiana.
Kirchner studied graphic design in her home state of Nebraska where she received her art degree. Like Warhol, her artistic endeavors began with commercial design and illustration and later blossomed into a different artistic pursuit -- abstract expressionist painting. Both artists have works in the permanent collection of the Indiana State Museum and Kirchner is fresh off her first solo museum exhibition, "Visible Silence", at the Art Museum of Greater Lafayette.
According to the Kander:
I am very interested in creating a sense of space and distance on a flat surface. In this piece (Span), I have reaffirmed this contradiction by using flat color as well as texture. The divide between the two canvases subtly breaks the horizontal span.
This is a painting about expanse, breadth, and the space we occupy at any given moment. I have created a gentle tension between the two outer edges of the composition; the mid-point is the calm, the eye of the storm, or the centre of gravity.
According to the Kirchner:
"Field II" is part of a series of works that evoke a feeling of how wind moves across tall grasses. The strong black section anchors the left side, while the light, neutral area flows back toward that bold section. Very thin strokes of paint move across the entire canvas which unites the contrasting sections and interrupts the neutral atmosphere.