This Saturday, April 5, Twentynine Palms Art Gallery will be holding the opening reception for April’s three-artist group show from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m., featuring assemblage artist David Isakson, photography by Willaim Walsh, and experimental paintings by Susan Kearns, the latter whose work goes beyond expressionism.
Kearns says her work’s subject matter consists of the odd and unusual people, places, and things of the desert where she’s lived for almost ten years. Kearns employs a variety of methods, constantly pushing the boundaries of traditional expressionism by integrating unconventional materials, layering textures, and embracing the unexpected results.
“I like to explore with different paints that you wouldn’t think would be used in fine art. I get a lot of my stuff from Home Depot or people give me old paint, house paint, stains, and I combine that with fine art materials so it’s just kind of a surprise of what happens.”
Kearns is calling her section of April’s show “Experimentalism Off the Grid,” in reference to her solar-powered off-grid compound she shares with her husband, Pat. She says living in the remote area of Landers can be limiting for access to traditional materials, which can force an artist to get even more creative.
“I repurpose all kinds of materials. The lack of art supply stores… I don’t even know where the closest art supply store is. Mail ordering can even be a challenge here sometimes because you can’t get certain things shipped. I just started going to Home Depot to get stuff out of necessity. Rather than canvas I paint on pieces of wood mostly, that are either found objects or I get from Home Depot.”
Often Kearns will utilize a more direct environmental approach to her materials.
“Yeah, I use sand and sometimes I’ll mix it in spackling material to create texture with clay or dust. One of my paintings has chimney soot in it after we did a chimney sweep, and I saved the soot. So yeah, I get pretty creative out of necessity.”
When I asked Kearns how she picks her subjects, she said it’s all inspired by the desert, yet none are an exact representation of the places, people, or things she depicts from memory.
“So if I go to a place I’ll take a bunch of pictures but I usually paint from memory so it’s not an exact representation. It’s just my interpretation of it, which I get some interesting results from. I do a lot of animals and sometimes I’ll paint them as half-human and they become more like these iconic figures.”
The group show featuring Susan Kearns, David Isakson, and Willaim Walsh runs from April 5 to April 28th at Twentynine Palms Gallery.
