Kristy Luck: Close to the Verb

Kristy Luck’s paintings are windows into psychological spaces in which forms emerge from fluid gestures and rich colors. Building upon sketches, her surreal landscapes evoke a subconscious understanding of space and objects. Luck notes, "I think of it as revisiting the same place at a different time of day, or years later. The color, the emphasis, the images, all shift and change - like music.”

Kristy Luck's works have a shifting atmospheric spatial sense, due in part perhaps to her meticulous yet open painterly practice. "My paintings start with creating and refining the surface. The first layer of paint is a translucent 'drawing' that covers the entire canvas. This creates the underlying structure and commitment to my composition. I then slowly add layers of paint with wax and build up intuitively with little to no planning."

Luck's works feature erupting volcanoes, bursting blooms, spinning tornadoes and the complexities of the human body. Her paintings feel transformational, allowing the viewer to bring their own own associations and readings to a given scene. “I want my surfaces to generously reveal their making to the viewer in visible, built-up layers and repeated patterns. At the same time, I let the forms in the image slip out of grasp to evoke personal or private mystery.”

Inspired by artists and writers like Carol Rama and Clarice Lispector, and poetry in particular, Kristy Luck's work addresses sensuality, imagination and memory. We experience these spaces as if in a dream: "Part of how I gauge when a piece is finished is that there is no pre-dominant read." There is a sense of presence in these works, but also one of absence, a feeling of things coming together, and at the same time breaking apart.