Painted Faces

Kinkead Contemporary is proud to kick off our second season with Painted Faces: the mask in contemporary art. This group exhibition includes a broad variety of artists who utilize the motif of the mask, or veil, within their work. Usages of masks range from formal concerns to those of social and personal identity, to another conceptual layer of abstraction. Whether creating actual masks or using them within the greater scope of their work, masks appear to serve as an enigmatic point of content that goes beyond the mask itself.

Heather Cantrell's series Altered States intertwines preconceived notions of personal and culturalidentity by juxtaposing artist portraits with landscapes in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Cantrell's multivalent exploration of subcultures and tribes reveals her interest in the "instability of identity".

Brad Farwell's photographs are a literal and metaphorical view of the artist's attempt to understand "blackness". Culturally loaded sites such as Osborne St. and Foothill Blvd, where the Rodney King beating occurred are photographed through an African mask.

Keltie Ferris builds her paintings upon the recurring image of the mask. For Ferris, the mask motif allows her viewer to peak into her process, through the unveiling of layers. Beyond process, the mask also acknowledges the artist's concern with identity in relation to gender, age, and expectations.

Fusing Eastern and Western aesthetics, Timothy Hull peers into revisionist cultural history. Taking mystical thinker and orator G.I. Gurdjieff's image, Hull examines the dynamics of the cult of personality.

Jim Lutes' masterful paintings present abstraction atop a more representational genre of painting. In turn, the very personal is masked by the conglomeration of meaty brushstrokes and luscious layers of beautiful paint.

James Everett Stanley portrays a romantic vision of a group of outsider post-historic warriors. These characters are found either together or in solitude within a natural landscape, clad in masks and second-hand camouflage.

Steel Stillman's "G." series are life-span images of one man. The photographs follow him from early childhood until the end of his life. Stillman's work explores shadows and secrets, while blending formal and psychological qualities.

Painted Faces
The Mask in Contemporary Art

Künstler: Heather Cantrell, Brad Farwell, Keltie Ferris, Timothy Hull , Jim Lutes, James Everett Stanley, Steel Stillman