ARTSPEAK RADIO with Eirich,

Wednesday, July 29, 2020; 12noon – 1pm CST, 90.1fm KKFI Kansas City Community Radio, streaming live www.kkfi.org

Producer/host Maria Vasquez Boyd talks with Cerbera Gallery owner Philipp Eirich, artists Susan Kiefer and Stephanie Lanter, also Katie Mabry van Dieren owner of the Strawberry Swing KC.

SUSAN KIEFER-Making things makes me happy—from paper dolls and dolls clothes in childhood to costumes and scenery for my dance group as a young adult to artwork as the activity that sustains me. Drawing has been the starting point of every project, which led to a BFA and MFA in Printmaking from the California College of Arts in San Francisco, and a woodcut artist book in the permanent collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.
Introduced to painting in a graduate seminar with John Zurier, I was seduced by the immediacy and directness of painting. I abandoned my training as a printmaker, and the relief prints and artist books that held my attention for the first several years of my art career. With painting now my primary medium, I prefer working in oil for the slow drying and richness of color.
Themes and subject matter of my artwork has varied over the years as new ideas capture my attention and the seasons of my life are reflected in my work; what has never changed is the need to create.
My solo show, Circular Logic, opened virtually June 1 at Cerbera Gallery in the Kansas City Crossroads. The 25 paintings in the show are a new series and a new style which evolved out of the expressive geometric abstracts I had been doing for several years. I had been noticing when liking or commenting on artwork in Facebook or Instagram that I was gravitating toward simplicity and clear even color. So I decided to incorporate that into my work.
Circles have been the geometric shape of choice for me: I stayed with that, but started deconstructing them with a set of made-up compositional rules. I began by drawing several circles onto the sketch book, sometimes overlapping, sometimes not. Lines were added to the drawing, tangent to the circles, bisecting them or just for interest. Erasing sections of the circles and lines created new, original shapes. Once I was happy with the composition, I redrew it onto a canvas.
The second ingredient of this series is color relationships. The simplicity of the designs leans heavily on the interactions of strong and interesting color. After choosing a main color for the painting, I base a decision on two to three more colors on color theory.
The secondary triad is my favorite color relationship, but I like to skew it somewhat from the standard purple, green, orange. I have found mostly monochrome with an accent color is also very effective with these paintings.
Except for the green and pink complement, the colors for Love in the Elysian Fields do not fit any standard color theory rule. Finding color relationships outside the rules is another challenge. This series continues to fascinate me, so I expect to continue with it for some time.
With stringent attention to the safety of visitors and staff, Cerbera Gallery is open for in-person visits, affording an opportunity to see this show in person.
www.susankieferart.com

KATIE MAMBRY van DIEREN-Join Kansas City’s original maker party as we celebrate TEN YEARS of shopping handmade and local at The 10th Annual Summer Swing! A highly curated mix of Kansas City & Midwest makers, food trucks, and more! We are broadcasting our VIRTUAL event LIVE from Kansas City Museum straight to Booth Central. Dead Beet Eats and Stag Pizza will be set up at The KC Museum, too, if you feel like grabbing brunch or lunch while you shop on your phone. 

CLICK HERE TO ATTEND, VIRTUALLY: https://www.tinyurl.com/summerswingkc

Thank you for supporting Kansas City’s celebration of the maker movement, The Strawberry Swing.

For more info, visit www.thestrawberryswing.com

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