Natasha Kissell in her London studio
Natasha Kissell, 'The Magic Hour', 2007
Oil on canvas, 42 x 48 in
Natasha Kissell will be showing a series of new series of paintings at Eleven gallery in London in March. Dafydd Jones photographed the artist in her studio last week as she was putting the finishing touches to the works for her exhibition entitled 'The Hours'.
Taking their sources from the medieval Book of Hours which listed the appropriate texts for each liturgical hour, Kissell's paintings evoke a division of the day far remote from our mechanical modern schedule. They propose a more flexible understanding of time, closely associated with the contemplation of nature. Kissell freely associates traditional landscapes and contemporary elements, either Modernist buildings as in her previous works, or graffiti as in 'The Magic Hour' (2007). This collapsing of time-zones opens up complex narratives intimately weaved in the delicate texture of paintings. Contrasting with her perfectly mastered painterly technique, Kissell leaves her stories open to interpretation. Each Hour functions like a proposition for meditation.
As different stages of the day like dusk and dawn create a different state of being, the spiritual resonances of her landscape change with the change of the light. Recently, Kissell started working on sculptures, spatial projection of her painted universe. The first one, 'The Beast of Bodmin', realized in collaboration with the architect Mark Dziewulski, combined a precise model of an extraordinary contemporary building with the story of a legendary black panther reportedly seen on the Bodmin moor. The sculpture is animated with a complex network of lights underling the changing nature of landscape according to each hour of the day. For this exhibition Kissell will show a smaller sculpture recalling the peepshows of Dutch 17th-century artists such as Samuel van Hoogstraten, a genuine invitation to wonderment.
Natasha Kissell was born in 1978 and lives in London. Her work is in the collections of, amongst others, HSBC, Deutsche Bank, the Saatchi Collection and Knoxville Museum of Art, Tennessee. In 2008, she is taking part in the exhibition Painting the Glass House: Artists Revisit Modern Architecture. The exhibition opens in March 2008 at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Connecticut and the Yale School of Architecture Gallery, and will travel to Mills College Art Museum in California in 2009.
Natasha Kissell: The Hours
26 March to 26 April 2008
Eleven
11 Eccleston Street
London SW1W 9LX
T +44 (0)20 7823 5540
info@elevenfineart.com
www.elevenfineart.com
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