Carla Klein

Bonakdar Jancou Gallery, New York
Through July 14

Carla Klein is ruled by a passion for aquariums and museum display cases, but hers do not have animals nor objects from the past.
She is likewise drawn to artificial spaces that are inhabited on a transitory, rather than on a permanent basis, such as points of transit like airports or bridges over rivers; spaces that provide a prolonged experience, such as swimming pools, also fascinate her.

According to the anthropologist Marc Augé, these spaces, which lack an identity and are structured by contractual relations rather than by social interaction, can be defined as "non-places" that are utilized by our contemporary society.

The artist’s latest works are mainly swimming pools, dams, bridges, and underwater scenes, painted in turquoise tones with horizontal and vertical brushstrokes of an intensity and irregular thickness that express perfectly her "watery" subjects. The swimming pools appear in anonymous places, without a soul in sight, and with a choice of perspective that invites the viewer to lose him or herself in the silence of these spaces that Klein does not clearly define as exclusively external or internal.

The bridges are painted with the same monochromatic palette on one or two panels, and show us natural landscapes that have been altered by manmade constructions, and therefore humanized. The natural light filtering down from the large skylights of the gallery reflects on the surfaces of the works and makes the oil and enamel paint, sometimes randomly dripped onto the canvas, shimmer and move.

In making these works, Carla Klein draws inspiration not from what she perceives directly with her own eyes, but rather from photographs and postcards. The artist looks upon these as much more than mere reproductions of reality; they are subjective images in that they have been filtered through the eyes of whoever photographed them.

Figurative and abstract elements merge and become one in her paintings. "A good painting – explains the artist – has to leave space for associations. For me, this also means that there are different lines running through it that have to come together: photography, image and paint."




Micaela Giovannotti
Translation by Jacqueline Smith