Morgan Lehman is very pleased to present “Shape of Light”, Emily Kiacz’s first solo exhibition with the gallery.
Emily Kiacz
Shape of Light
Emily Kiacz: Shape of Light
Head-Image
Emily Kiacz
Shasta, 2020
Acrylic on canvas over panel
48h x 48w in
121.92h x 121.92w cm
EK_019
$ 6,000.00
Emily Kiacz
Apparition, 2020
Acrylic on canvas over panel
48h x 48w in
121.92h x 121.92w cm
EK_018
$ 6,000.00
Emily Kiacz
Afterlight, 2020
Acrylic on canvas over panel
48h x 48w in
121.92h x 121.92w cm
EK_001
$ 6,000.00
Emily Kiacz
Metamorphosis, 2021
Acrylic on canvas over panel
48h x 48w in
121.92h x 121.92w cm
EK_023
$ 6,000.00
Emily Kiacz
French Tips, 2021
Acrylic on canvas over panel
48h x 48w in
121.92h x 121.92w cm
EK_022
$ 6,000.00
Emily Kiacz
Cosmic Journey, 2020
Acrylic on canvas over panel
24h x 24w in
60.96h x 60.96w cm
EK_002
$ 3,000.00
Emily Kiacz
Screaming Heart, 2020
Acrylic on canvas over panel
24h x 24w in
60.96h x 60.96w cm
EK_004
$ 3,000.00
Emily Kiacz
Vision, 2020
Acrylic on canvas over panel
24h x 24w in
60.96h x 60.96w cm
EK_005
$ 3,000.00
Emily Kiacz
Forgotten Realms, 2020
Acrylic on canvas over panel
24h x 24w in
60.96h x 60.96w cm
EK_016
$ 3,000.00
Emily Kiacz
Cascade II, 2020
Acrylic on canvas over panel
24h x 24w in
60.96h x 60.96w cm
EK_017
$ 3,000.00
Emily Kiacz
Glass Wing, 2020
Acrylic on canvas over panel
24h x 24w in
60.96h x 60.96w cm
EK_020
$ 3,000.00
Emily Kiacz
Stratosphere, 2020
Acrylic on canvas over panel
24h x 24w in
60.96h x 60.96w cm
EK_021
$ 3,000.00
Emily Kiacz, Screaming Heart, oil and acrylic on canvas over panel, 24 x 24 inches, 2020
Kiacz began the body of work on display during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent citywide lockdown. While under enforced isolation and no longer able to spend regular time outdoors (where she often looks for inspiration and makes small studies that serve as raw material for her canvases), the artist found herself rethinking her studio process from the ground up. Kiacz, rather than looking outwards towards the landscape, began looking inwards towards personal memories and her imagination for clues as to how to move forward with her paintings. The artist also began looking upwards towards the sky, which was visible through her studio window, and where in dramatic sunsets she recognized a range of emotions including serenity, hope, wonder, foreboding, and the anxiety of the moment.
Kiacz’s latest color palette is gem-like and deeply luminous, and makes use of the complex secondary color characteristics that emerge through layering multiple glazes of translucent acrylic paint one on top of the other. Color deployed through these means mixes optically (through filmic overlap) rather than materially (through the literal comingling of pigments in wet paint). The effect is that light seems to originate from the back of the painting and proceed forward towards our eyes, much like looking at a back-lit display. Dramatic color atmospheres recall the liquid washes of watercolor paint techniques, as well as the sense of temporality inherent in natural phenomena such as vapor, rainbows, sunsets, mist, and fog.
Though many new concepts and process shifts have entered into Kiacz’s practice recently, several elements have remained consistent. These include the artist’s insistence on the objecthood of a painting, an idea that she emphasizes through her use of shaped panels. These custom-built supports reflect forms that have interested Kiacz over the years (the cruciform of Screaming Heart, for instance), as well as new visual motifs like the 90’s-style daisy that featured heavily in the artist’s teenage years, which appears in Forgotten Realms, Cosmic Journey and Apparition. The paintings are also a continuation of Kiacz’s pursuit of a purely nonobjective abstract iconography, with titles serving as subtle hints towards the inspiration behind each work or other references that might help guide a viewer’s experience. In all these works, Kiacz continues to explore the possibilities of systematic, choreographed gesture as a means of creating emotive color environments and the illusion of space.
Works on Paper
Emily Kiacz
Blind Eclipse, 2020
Watercolor on paper
30h x 22w in
76.20h x 55.88w cm
EK_008
sold
Emily Kiacz
Fractured Form, 2020
Watercolor on paper
30h x 22w in
76.20h x 55.88w cm
EK_009
$ 1,000.00
Emily Kiacz
Silk Wings, 2020
Watercolor on paper
30h x 22w in
76.20h x 55.88w cm
EK_015
$ 1,000.00
Emily Kiacz
Eclipse, 2020
Watercolor on paper
30h x 22w in
76.20h x 55.88w cm
EK_024
$ 1,000.00
Emily Kiacz
Green Revision, 2020
Watercolor on paper
30h x 22w in
76.20h x 55.88w cm
sold
Emily Kiacz
Adaptation, 2020
Watercolor on paper
30h x 22w in
76.20h x 55.88w cm
EK_011
$ 1,000.00
Emily Kiacz
Faded Variation, 2020
Watercolor on paper
30h x 22w in
76.20h x 55.88w cm
EK_012
sold
Emily Kiacz
Material Surrogate, 2020
Watercolor on paper
30h x 22w in
76.20h x 55.88w cm
EK_014
sold
Emily Kiacz
Sun Body, 2020
Watercolor on paper
30h x 22w in
76.20h x 55.88w cm
EK_007
$ 1,000.00
Emily Kiacz
Shasta Blue II, 2021
Watercolor on paper
16h x 12w in
40.64h x 30.48w cm
EK_033
$ 500.00
Emily Kiacz
Shasta Blue III, 2021
Watercolor on paper
16h x 12w in
40.64h x 30.48w cm
EK_034
$ 500.00
Emily Kiacz
Turning Point, 2020
Watercolor on paper
16h x 12w in
40.64h x 30.48w cm
EK_030
sold
Emily Kiacz
Silhouette, 2020
Watercolor on paper
16h x 12w in
40.64h x 30.48w cm
EK_029
$ 500.00
Emily Kiacz
Silhouette III, 2021
Watercolor on paper
16h x 12w in
40.64h x 30.48w cm
EK_036
$ 500.00
Emily Kiacz
Shasta Blue, 2020
Watercolor on paper
16h x 12w in
40.64h x 30.48w cm
EK_028
sold
Emily Kiacz
Realignment, 2020
Watercolor on paper
16h x 12w in
40.64h x 30.48w cm
EK_027
sold
Emily Kiacz
Copper Pool, 2020
Watercolor on paper
16h x 12w in
40.64h x 30.48w cm
EK_026
sold
Emily Kiacz
Blind Symmetry, 2020
Watercolor on paper
16h x 12w in
40.64h x 30.48w cm
EK_025
sold
(artist in her studio, 2020)
Emily Kiacz received her MFA in painting from Boston University in 2011 and her BFA in painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2009. She has been awarded fellowships at The Corporation of Yaddo, Tilleard Projects Residency, The Edward F. Albee Foundation, and Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop, among others. Over the last nine years she has participated in numerous exhibitions including at Cuevas Tilleard Projects, Morgan Lehman Gallery and White Columns. Her work is included in the collections of New York Presbyterian Hospital and Smith College. Kiacz lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.