Caroline Kent "Players, Shadows, Figments and Forms", 2018

Caroline Kent
Players, Shadows, Figments and Forms, 2018
Screenprint on Rives BFK paper 
34 1/4 x 25 3/4 in
Edition of 40

Caroline Kent explores the limits of language in her otherworldly large-scale paintings, employing geometry, line, and pattern as means of communication. Kent received her MFA from the University of Minnesota in 2008 and was the recipient of the 2020 Joan Mitchell Foundation Award for Painters & Sculptors. Kent’s improvisational compositions feature bright free-form shapes floating atop dark-gray backgrounds. Her paintings simultaneously recall the spiritual invocations of Hilma af Klint, Henri Matisse’s cutouts, and the rigid, austere forms of Russian Constructivism. Drawing inspiration from her Mexican heritage, she also cites the sumptuous colors and dynamism of Mexican Modernists Pedro Coronel and Luis Barragán as influences. Her abstract visual vocabulary evokes a symbolic language that is both universal and cryptic. Beginning by rotating and arranging cut pieces of paper, Kent finds her compositions through trial and error, in the process expanding her catalogue of forms for future use.