Richard Kalina

The paintings in this show, done between 2015 and 2017, are selected from six interconnected groups – the Resting State, Quotient, Parameter, Kromos, Sector and Counterpart series. For many years I have been working on generating a flexible and evolving grammatical index of the areas of abstraction that particularly hold my attention; in the process setting up a usable and moveable vocabulary — a toolbox of devices, techniques, and references. I have been drawn to certain things and certain ways of making (geometry, the machine and the machine-like, the grid, color, and the decorative), and the work, while morphing over the years, has always reflected those interests.

The paintings that preceded these were complex concoctions – colorful, playful, multipart works that evoked architectural diagrams (mixing both plan and elevation), time-motion charts, as well as toys and games. They were pleasantly time-consuming to make, and proceeded in clear stages. At a certain point, the outer shape of the painting, solid white, sat there on the linen ground, ready to be filled in with colors, lines, and shapes. That plain but highly articulated form always intrigued me, and I went on to the next phases with a certain degree of regret.

Until I thought – why not make a painting with just the two elements – intricate figure and (in terms of positive/negative space) equally complex ground? The panel and room- like divisions of the earlier paintings could still be intuited from the outer shapes, and the larger spaces cast the color as an equal partner to the form and the surface. The first group, the Resting State paintings, contrasted a large squared-off shape with the warm color and texture of raw linen. The second series, the Quotient paintings, used two colors to increase the paintings’ spatial and chromatic heft, and the later series elaborated on this. The forms gradually became more complex, the interiors opened up, and my longstanding interest in the architectural and the ornamental was given freer rein. I like to surprise myself, and this work did the job for me. —— Richard Kalina, June 2020

Richard Kalina: Selected Work will be on view in the Carriage House ground floor. Richard Kalina was represented by Lennon, Weinberg, Inc. for over 25 years in New York, NY. He has exhibited widely with DC Moore Gallery, New York; the Tibor de Nagy Gallery, New York; The Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, NY; The Aldrich Museum, Ridgefield, CT; the McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, TX; as well as internationally with le Consortium, Dijon, France; MAMCO: Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Geneva, Switzerland; Galerie Rahmel, Cologne, Germany; and In Arco, Turin, Italy. His work is in the collections of the Fogg Museum of Harvard University, Cambridge, MA; the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT; the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, NC ; the Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, NY; The National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C., the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA; Mumok: Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig; Vienna Austria; the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN; the Grey Art Gallery, New York University; the Princeton University Art Museum, and the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, CT. Kalina serves on the Board of Governors of the National Academy of Design, teaches studio art and art history at Fordham University, and is a contributing editor at Art in America. He resides in New York City and East Hampton, NY.