Link to Post:
http://hyperallergic.com/64822/beer-with-a-painter-kyle-staver/
Jennifer Samet talks with painter Kyle Staver about her work, Facebook debates, and late Renoir.
Staver remarks: "When I first started painting, with personal subject matter, I wanted to tell you what it was like to be alive, and to be Kyle Staver. I thought, I will paint about the most important events of my life, and hopefully, in doing that, will make a connection to you and it will be universal. Well, I did that for a long time. If you look at Titian, Rembrandt, Tintoretto, or Picasso, you see that at a certain point in their careers, they gave up personal incidents as subject matter, and turned to the mythological, because those themes are typical. We all share Adam and Eve — some sort of ideas about creation. So, rather than go from the particular and try to make it universal, I now am taking the universal and telling you about my stake in it."
Link to Post:
http://www.twocoatsofpaint.com/2013/01/in-her-own-words-kyle-staver.html
Sharon Butler posts Kyle Staver's thoughts on her work which will be on view in the upcoming exhibition Kyle Staver: Paintings, Prints, Reliefs at John Davis Gallery, Hudson, New York (January 31 - February 24, 2013).
Staver notes: "I don't think it's an accident that these Mythical subjects are often taken up by artists in mid to late career. My recent paintings' latent anxiety, emotional/tonal heaviness, and darkness are not just reflections of my home in Northern Minnesota's climate: I have grown increasingly interested in speaking with the big boys of western art, stepping into their homes, working with their darker palettes and their darker subjects, classical mythology, especially. I don’t feel at odds with artists like Titian and Rembrandt—I’m not arguing with them as a contemporary female painter, although my own take on these mythic women is often quite different. I don’t subjectify my women; rather, they allow me to reinvestigate a myth from my point of view: rather than rape, there’s pleasurable co-joining, as in Danae and the Parakeet; rather than the terrified victim, there’s resistant outrage, as in Europa and the Flying Fish."
Link to Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-eckhardt-kohler/mark-wipe-scrape-shape-spaceshifter_b_2201986.html
William Eckhardt Kohler blogs about the "weekend" exhibition Mark, Wipe, Scrape, Shape at Spaceshifter - the studio of painter Sangram Majumdar.
Kohler features "11 painters, Michael Berryhill, Gideon Bok, Matt Bollinger, Katherine Bradford, Tom Burckhardt, Jackie Gendel, Amy Mahnick, Majumdar, Kyle Staver, Didier Williams and Karla Wozniak, work in a variety of idioms; perceptual, abstract, poetical, narrative and conceptual... The dominant tone of these artists' orientation is that of idiosyncratic visionaries, rolling up their sleeves and forging a personal understanding of what painting can do. What is demonstrated here is that the newness is in what each artist brings to the table as each their own brilliant self; original rather than ideological or radical."
Link to Post:
http://leftbankartblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/wherefore-figure-wherefore-self.html
Carl Belz considers the challenges of painting the figure and examines the work of Kyle Staver and Anne Harris.
Link to Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-seed/kyle-staver-painter_b_1139198.html
John Seed writes about a new triptych by painter Kyle Staver on view as part of the exhibition Kyle Staver: A Survey of Paintings and Prints on view at the Pennsylvania College of Art & Design through January 20, 2012.
Staver painted the triptych to honor her brother who passed away six years ago. Seed writes "Although the paintings can be seen together as a cycle, Staver is mainly concerned that each image tells a strong story that can be related to the other panels. 'What is important for me, as a painter,' she relates, "Is that the three panels hold together and have the 'gestalt' to be cohesive, without relying on pictured sequencing, as in comic books.' Another element that connects the paintings is humor, something Staver finds essential; 'I do think humor is terribly important in painting. It is the constant and steady reminder of our humanity; the foible aspect of being alive.' "
