Kim Ouellette
Region: South
These works represent acts of improvisation through a formal language.
If they contain narrative, it is fleeting, individual to the viewer. I want the
viewer to have a moment of surprise and delight from these works: like finding
something unusual in nature, not expected and moving. I want them to have
familiarity and newness at the same time.
Laying lines down across the canvas is for me a physical act, a bodily relationship
to the canvas’s materiality and space, experimenting with different brushes
and hand pressure without planning or overt intentionality. The space created
is both meditative and unresolved––something I can react to, improvise with. I
develop a relationship with each work’s formal elements. I try to find and then
“mess up” any narrative.
I am acutely aware that I have been exploring the act of making lines in my
work for the last two decades. I explore how line cohabits with shape and color
on the canvas.