The current exhibition in the main gallery at Kingston Gallery, The Awake Fluid of Inside Dreams by artist Ilona Anderson, envelopes visitors in an imaginative space, evocative of narratives. Anderson, who grew up in South Africa, explores place and boundaries in four stop motion animations and a number of archival prints captured from the animation process. The animations, are created from layers of Anderson’s drawings, paintings and photography collaged together then set in motion.
Upon entering the gallery, one is immediately drawn into the intensity of color and slow transitioning of the projected animations. The exhibition title is perfectly descriptive of the magical fluidity of the works presented, as evidenced in the animation cell included below. The process Anderson uses to create the flowing animations involves the accumulation of many images, with small changes occurring across time creating the material for the images to be cobbled together digitally. The image of Japanese Screen: An Awake Dream depicts the artist’s work getting ready to be printed.
The Awake Fluid of Awake Dreams, animation cell, sizes variable, 2017-18.
For Anderson, home, resides in each moment, experience and situation. Being a person from another country, this anchors the narrative for her. She creates in order to explore these edges and boundaries, the arch of the narrative.
“I excavate these uninspected spaces to reveal the surprising in the everyday, which allows me to embrace the changing moment.” In this statement she reveals her curiosity of the continuously changing image/ s of our lives.
Japanese Screen: An Awake Dream, animation cell, sizes variable, 2018.
In the back gallery, the Kingston Project Space, Erica Licea-Kane’s exhibition Small Works presents shaped paintings created from balsa wood and extruded acrylic paint. These smaller works are richly textured and patterned. The skin-like effect of the extruded areas act like portals to the understructures when left untextured.
Licea Kane describes her process; “I set out to create a series of pieces that would expose the underbelly of each work. In the piece, Letting it Be, I left an entire area untouched of the burned/patterned surface that started as the base of all of these works. I found that I really enjoyed burning the balsa wood, patching out the shapes and then applying a transparent layer of acrylic pigment. For me this opens the door to exploring more transparent and painted surfaces in future works.”
Letting it Be, 2018, 18”x15”x .5”, extruded pigmented medium
Letting it Be, 2018, 18”x15”x .5”, extruded pigmented medium (detail)
Ilona Anderson: The Awake Fluid of Inside Dreams is on view in the Kingston Main and Center Galleries, and Erica Licea-Kane: Small Works is on view in the Kingston Project Space through July 1, 2018.
Kingston Gallery 