Event
Karl Klingbiel & Marti Somers: Recent PaintingsPost an Event »
Caldwell Snyder Gallery
August 7 - September 15, 2014Info
341 Sutter Street San Francisco, CA 94108 Google Map »
In his dynamic, seductive abstractions, New York artist Karl Klingbiel distills the chaos of daily life into compositions that seem to shift beautifully over the canvas. Capturing a world of information that we sense all around us, but only process in part, his paintings are like “compendiums” of everything that makes up his frame of reference, from physical places to literature to artworks. “The visual aspects of the world have a huge impact on me—patterns, relationships, stunning moments,” he has said. Klingbiel’s palette ranges from high-energy strokes in pure neon pink to densely layered areas of moody color, reflecting a full map of psychological states and visual contexts. In his work, he hopes to offer “something that is raw, unfiltered and unspecified, because I don’t want to give you a thing but rather everything.”
Klingbiel earned a B.A. from Yale University and has exhibited his paintings at numerous galleries in the U.S. and Europe. His work is included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the New York Public Library, the Castellani Art Museum, and the Agnes Gund Collection.
Marti Somers’ rich, multi-layered paintings surround the viewer with a sense of wonder, exhibiting an equally deep appreciation for the natural world, human life, and art. In her textured canvases, built up with encaustic paint and paper ephemera, images of animals and flowers mingle with geometric shapes, text, and symbols in an ever-changing palette of vibrant and natural colors. Somers often spins bodies of work around a single word or idea. In her most recent paintings, she meditates on the word “pearl,” and touches on imagery inspired by monarch butterflies, which were migrating through the Monterey Coast as she began the paintings. “I hope to bring you into my world of storytelling,” she has said. “The search for peace and beauty, the fragility of nature juxtaposed against modern life, the human form in balance with others, and in the face of an often foreboding sky, abundant hope."
A California native, Somers is an award-winning painter, designer, and illustrator, and in 2007 co-founded Somersault Studios, a nonprofit publishing venture to benefit the arts of California. She has exhibited her work at galleries and museums around the country.