art talks. The artists on view in Angst and Contempt: New Painting in conversation with Rahsaan Gandy.
art talks. Angst and Contempt: New Painting
Wednesday, April 18th , 7-9pm
Location: Pen + Brush, 29 E. 22nd, St. NYC
RSVP: rsvp@sparkplug-pr.com
Join us as three artists – Kharis Kennedy, Stacy Leigh, and Sarah Sagarin – with work currently on view in Angst and Contempt: New Painting discuss their work with Rahsaan Gandy.
About the panelists:
Rahsaan Gandy has been leaving his indelible mark on artists, brands, and celebrities with whom he has worked. As multi-talented as he is, Mr. Gandy is best known for his ability to conceive, develop, and guide his audience through the world of multidisciplinary creatives. The artists in Angst and Contempt are all navigating the grim realities of today’s world through the context of contemporary painting and Rahsaan will take a page from his podcast, Mister Welfare to further explore their work and process.
Kharis Kennedy approaches the body and subsequent objects as sites of knowledge and repositories of awareness that can be resourced in the service of personal discovery. Kennedy describes her process as “using metaphysics and intuition to build images and reveal inner truths.” Themes found in her paintings are broad but interlaced: the depiction of animals who reflect the spirit of their owners; a satiric presentation of fashion’s role in informing individual and social identities; the turbulence of her inner world; and, in recent years, the portrayal of psychic and social relations in all the complexity of contemporary life.
Stacy Leigh paints portraits of women suspended in both time and space. The multidisciplinary artist describes these scenes as “women in thought.” She uses memories and her daily surroundings as influences to bring imagined and life-inspired portraits to fruition. Self-taught, Leigh builds up layers of paint working from darkness to light, not dissimilar to the renaissance style of glazing, which allows her to achieve a unique appearance.
Sarah Sagarin is a formalist painter who combines classical modes of painting in various ways, ultimately developing her own authentic style. With a painterly and at times gestural stroke, the artist lets her canvas speak for itself as viewers can often find graphite underdrawings as well as fingerprints still active on the finished surface of her work. Sagarin’s paintings are informed by influences ranging from Surrealism, German Expressionism, and American Regionalism to Baroque.