Richard Kalina, Art and Work 10

Statement

My work in recent years has explored the intersections of rationality, causality, caprice, and decorative pleasure, set in the context of abstract delineations of that flawed icon of the modern world–the machine. How can logical, architectonic, grid-based structures, with their implicit unity be undermined and produce an aesthetic yield, not a functional product? How can sensual and unexpected color, combined with crisply executed, reasonable looking but ultimately irrational organization and imagery work together to create a coherent, optimistic yet perpetually fragmenting whole? These questions, open ended as they are, serve to unbalance the equation and keep things moving for me.
Artwork Info
Date 2021
Dimensions 42 x 52.5 inches
Medium Oil on linen
Artist Info
Born New York, NY
Works East Hampton, NY

Biography

Richard Kalina was elected to the National Academy in 2011 and joined the Academy’s Board of Governors in 2015. He has been exhibiting his paintings since 1969, and his work is to be found in many museums and public collections nationally and internationally. Richard Kalina has taught since 1990 at Fordham University, where he is Professor of Art. In addition to his work in painting and drawing, Richard Kalina is a widely-published art critic, serving as a Contributing Editor at Art in America, and regularly publishing articles in that magazine and others. The Changing Boundaries and Nature of the Modern Art World: The Art Object and the Object of Art, a selection of Richard Kalina’s critical writings over the last thirty years, was published in London by Bloomsbury Academic as part of their series, Aesthetics and Contemporary Art.