Kurt Lightner
Paintings and Sculpture
Opening Reception: Friday, March 11, 6-8 pm
The Rebecca Ibel Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new paintings and sculpture by Kurt Lightner. In these new works, Lightner concentrates his energetic compositional style and beautifully complex palate in smaller format paintings. Drawing on the natural surroundings experienced during his youth in Ohio, his new paintings explore, in an increasingly abstract vocabulary, the destructive force that nature has on man-made structures. In these small, vital paintings, dense brushstrokes intersect disjointedly, both creating structure and destroying it. Opaque brushstrokes bespeaking movement and destabilization are interspersed with luminous color. Lightner combines the disparate and sometimes oppositional in beautifully dynamic tension.
The sculptures have words, sentences carved directly on the branches. The origin of the branch is from a tree taken from the artist’s family property in Troy Ohio and the passages from his great-grandfather’s diary. The diary describes the mundane routine of a mid-west farmer, the seasons and life in a small community. These works are related to a larger, ongoing project involving a complete year’s diary carved onto the whole tree.
Originally from Ohio, Lightner received his BFA from Columbus College of Art and Design in 1993 and his MFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York in 2004. He has garnered considerable national attention in recent years, exhibiting in exhibitions in New York and across the country, including a solo show at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City. This is the artist’s first exhibition with the Rebecca Ibel Gallery.
For further information visit us at rebeccaibel.com or call 614-291-2555. Hours are Tuesday through Saturday 11 am – 5 pm and by appointment.
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