Kailey Barthel 'Smothering Green'
Drawer 1- ‘Smothering Green’, Collage on paper, 9x12inches, 2020
Artist Statement
Homes can be the site of banal everyday life moments, but also tension and hidden drama. Grappling with these contradictions between the familiar and the unfamiliar, what is stable and what is unsettled is what drives my work. In a new series of collages I have been using fragments of rooms found in interior design magazines to construct new compositions. The cuttings are then reconjoined in arrangements both elegant and disorienting. In these cases the coherence of the previously intact view of the room is disrupted. What was once a familiar and legible domestic space becomes something else. The void of a window or doorway takes on solidity and a sculptural quality, and abrupt shifts in perspective, depth, and scale become disorienting.
Artist Bio
Kailey Barthel is a contemporary artist originally from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Through painting, drawing and printmaking, Barthel explores our relationship to homes and interior domestic spaces, investigating the ways in which places we associate with safety and familiarity can be made to feel unsettling or uncanny. Barthel completed her undergraduate education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she received a Bachelor’s degree in both Fine Arts and Latin. She received her MFA from the LeRoy E. Hoffberger School of Painting at Maryland Institute College of Art. Barthel is the recipient of a 2019 Vermont Studio Center Residency and a 2020 James Castle House Residency. She currently lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland.
Drawer 1- ‘Smothering Green’, Collage on paper, 9x12inches, 2020
Artist Statement
Homes can be the site of banal everyday life moments, but also tension and hidden drama. Grappling with these contradictions between the familiar and the unfamiliar, what is stable and what is unsettled is what drives my work. In a new series of collages I have been using fragments of rooms found in interior design magazines to construct new compositions. The cuttings are then reconjoined in arrangements both elegant and disorienting. In these cases the coherence of the previously intact view of the room is disrupted. What was once a familiar and legible domestic space becomes something else. The void of a window or doorway takes on solidity and a sculptural quality, and abrupt shifts in perspective, depth, and scale become disorienting.
Artist Bio
Kailey Barthel is a contemporary artist originally from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Through painting, drawing and printmaking, Barthel explores our relationship to homes and interior domestic spaces, investigating the ways in which places we associate with safety and familiarity can be made to feel unsettling or uncanny. Barthel completed her undergraduate education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she received a Bachelor’s degree in both Fine Arts and Latin. She received her MFA from the LeRoy E. Hoffberger School of Painting at Maryland Institute College of Art. Barthel is the recipient of a 2019 Vermont Studio Center Residency and a 2020 James Castle House Residency. She currently lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland.
Drawer 1- ‘Smothering Green’, Collage on paper, 9x12inches, 2020
Artist Statement
Homes can be the site of banal everyday life moments, but also tension and hidden drama. Grappling with these contradictions between the familiar and the unfamiliar, what is stable and what is unsettled is what drives my work. In a new series of collages I have been using fragments of rooms found in interior design magazines to construct new compositions. The cuttings are then reconjoined in arrangements both elegant and disorienting. In these cases the coherence of the previously intact view of the room is disrupted. What was once a familiar and legible domestic space becomes something else. The void of a window or doorway takes on solidity and a sculptural quality, and abrupt shifts in perspective, depth, and scale become disorienting.
Artist Bio
Kailey Barthel is a contemporary artist originally from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Through painting, drawing and printmaking, Barthel explores our relationship to homes and interior domestic spaces, investigating the ways in which places we associate with safety and familiarity can be made to feel unsettling or uncanny. Barthel completed her undergraduate education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she received a Bachelor’s degree in both Fine Arts and Latin. She received her MFA from the LeRoy E. Hoffberger School of Painting at Maryland Institute College of Art. Barthel is the recipient of a 2019 Vermont Studio Center Residency and a 2020 James Castle House Residency. She currently lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland.