As artists seek to illuminate a vision of the mind’s eye, they are confronted by the limits of what it isn’t. The result are works that subsume their opposites: A mechanical rendering so detailed it approaches abstraction. An assemblage of emotionally charged materials that becomes a whole. A geometric shape, animated. The body alone and untethered from observation, a portrait.
Kyle Dunn
Windows and doors separate private idylls from the labyrinthine cityscape, and shadows hide bodies from the light shining into their rooms. In Kyle Dunn’s paintings, figures are in a state of flux, their environments distorted. Inspired by Soviet realist figuration, images of men on social media, his boyfriend, and even himself, Dunn’s characters are often naked, wearing only their socks or shoes, and inexplicably paralleled by dogs bent yoga-like or frogs chasing moths. Dunn’s mysterious, erotic subjects are always caught in the moment.