- by Kayla NG
I attended on Kennedy's lecture at PSU last month but didn't have a chance to share on the blog, but now I post some of the lecture's information in order to give you guys a chance to experience Kristan Kennedy's presentation.
Kristan Kennedy is a graduate of the New York State College of Art and Design at Alfred University and is an exhibiting artist represented by the Elizabeth Leach Gallery in Portland, Oregon. Kennedy is the visual arts program director of the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA). She has been a fantastic supporter of the arts in Portland and was responsible for curating the Social Practice MFA group into the Time Based Arts Festival. Throughout Kennedy's life, she worked with with variety of artists, involving different people.
At first she show us a video of Frank Stella, 1972 - "This is the year I was born".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cN_rRCfRdmQ&feature=player_embedded
Above is a video of Frank Stella that Kennedy showed us ... and this is his artwork
She had a pictorial energy and control, young ideas about art as well. Her first experience is that the artist doesn't make what they show.
Her mother was the first person put pen on her hands, and she learned from her mom and was inspired by the paintings her mom made, for example, the seagulls.
Kennedy showed some old pictures from her childhood, as she described "Me on the rock, befriending the inanimate". In addition, she claimed that her dad had contribute to her artistic life, and that she learned to feel from her dad, either her sister and brothers are artists. Her dad made his first sculpture after going to DIA Beacon, declaring that he was a minimalist. Moreover, she mentioned about the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi vs. Jesus Christ. After that, she showed us her family's bookshelf, Future Shock, Radical Child Hearing, e.e cummings.
She was really excited when she saw a cement turtle in the park she passed by. [pic]
Kennedy was attracted and inspired by the Kimono and the Foot painting. Because of it, she made her paintings based on gesture from Japanese paintings.
She moved to Portland in 1995. She started at PICA as a volunteer and joined the Board of Trustees in 2002, before transitioning onto the staff in 2003. One of her exhibition was the US hotdog. Kennedy used to help running visual program, until 2005, she moved position and became Visual Art Program Director.
The turning point of her life was when she had cancer, everything had changed as well as her personal philosophy. After this incident, her painting was looked at as sadness and dark. However, after the operation, the space in her painting started to change.
P/S: Pictures above were taken by me from that lecture day, unfortunately that I just took a few, the rest of Kennedy's pictures were also very interesting.
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