Dana Louise Kirkpatrick's ZUGZWANG Opens Today at KM Fine Arts Los Angeles

KM Fine Arts is pleased to present ZUGZWANG, a solo exhibition of new paintings and mixed media works by Dana Louise Kirkpatrick, on view from today, November 8, 2014 to January 17, 2015 at the gallery's West Hollywood location at 814 North La Cienega Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90069. An opening reception will be held tonight, November 8 from 7-10 pm.

An avid reader of Dante, Shakespeare, and Toni Morrison, Dana Louise Kirkpatrick's paintings reference literature as well as elements of Modern art -- in particular German and Neo-Expressionism. The title of the exhibition, "Zugzwang," refers to an inescapable move in chess, one with damaging personal effect. Many of the figures in Kirkpatrick's work are often surreal depictions of the artist herself. Her work and confessional visual language, inspired and influenced by confessional artists Louise Bourgeois and Tracey Emin, grows from her fascination with, and empathy for, the constant existential duel between the isolated individual and the shared awareness of the group.

As critic Doug McClemont writes in "Drawing Out Dignity: Poetry and Justice in the Work of Dana Louise Kirkpatrick," his essay for the catalog accompanying the exhibition, "Dana Louise Kirkpatrick empathizes with mankind. She goes down the rabbit hole and comes up with clues as to what it means to be human. In depicting our collective experiences -- from disappointment to elation -- the artist amasses universal truths. Fearlessly, she gives them form. To experience a painting by the artist is to witness the essence of things."

McClemont continues: "Kirkpatrick's painterly works are handsome, gritty, passionate, and resolutely hopeful. The artist is an alchemist who presents symbols and figures that resound with a kind of effortless defiance. Primitive, Picassco-esque visages bleed and bray. A bull, with its fleshy tongue in the air, seems blissfully unaware as arrows come toward him. A doll can only be howling, his mouth a black void, arms outstretched. Sonny Liston takes a punch in the ring from Muhammad Ali and hovers a foot above the bottom edge of the canvas. An angel hangs upside down, its tarnished halo still attached. Life, it would appear, is a battle to maintain one's self-esteem. And Kirkpatrick's characters succeed despite the odds. From Boxers to Batman, Mammies to Mona Lisa, Hell's Angels to harlots, Kirkpatrick's paintings are inhabited by dogged, dog-eared characters, drawn with dignity. They've found their torment. They're aristocrats."

DATES + TIMES:

Opening Reception: Tonight, November 8, 7-10pm
Exhibition Dates + Hours: November 8 - January 17, 2015; Tuesday - Saturday, 11am-6pm
KM Fine Arts Los Angeles
814 North La Cienega
Los Angeles, CA 90069

About Dana Louise Kirkpatrick - Dana Louise Kirkpatrick was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1976. She was raised in Washington, D.C. and studied Fine Arts at Georgetown University, graduating with honors in 2001. While attending the university, she received the DaVinci Medal for Excellence in Studio Art and the Misty Dailey Award for Outstanding Work in Studio Art.

Kirkpatrick's bold, large-scale artworks sample Modern Art, street art, and German neo-expressionism, as well as other art historical sources. These mixed media works, often populated by a motley crew and cast of characters, tell stories, stories of the disaffected, the marginalized, and the voiceless, stories of Kirkpatrick's own. She grapples with the dichotomies and contradictions embedded in contemporary Western culture, religion, and humanity, using forceful iconography and a highly expressive technique. Avoiding sentimentality, the work of Dana Louise Kirkpatrick seeks to establish an intimate connection with viewers while engaging them with the unrestricted exploration of universal emotions.

Kirkpatrick lives and works between New York City and Los Angeles. She has studied at The Art Students League of New York and is also an art curatorial consultant for the Silverlake Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles. Her first Los Angeles solo exhibition-Unwashed and Somewhat Slightly Dazed-which featured a catalog with commentary written by her mentor Raymond Pettibon-was presented in Los Angeles in 2013.

Her works are in a large number of private collections, including Jorge M. Perez, Lyndley and Samuel Schwab, Timothy Hutton, Flea, Anthony Kiedis, Stephen Nemeth, James D. Stern, Cyril Aouizerate, Tim Armstrong, Neil Gehani, Shepard and Amanda Fairey, Ian Montone, and Eric Moscahlaidis.

Much in demand by collectors worldwide, Kirkpatrick's critically acclaimed works are an almost instant sell-out when presented at local and international art fairs. She has taken part in numerous group shows and donated work to many charity auctions for organizations such as the Rema Hort Mann Foundation, Silverlake Conservatory of Music, The MusiCares and GRAMMY Foundation, Surfers Healing, LIFT, Project Angel Food, and The Art of Elysium.

About KM Fine Arts - With prominent locations in Chicago on Oak Street and West Hollywood in Los Angeles, KM Fine Arts, directed by curator Ana Hollinger, has been critically acclaimed for its museum-quality exhibitions since 2006. The gallery specializes in American and European artists of early modernism, postwar, and contemporary art -- including the movements of Abstract Expressionism and Color Field painting. The gallery program includes works by Georg Baselitz, Norman Bluhm, Fernando Botero, James Brooks, Alexander Calder, John Chamberlain, Michael Goldberg, Hans Hofmann, Robert Indiana, Wolf Kahn, Joan Miro, Pablo Picasso, Robert Rauschenberg, and Andy Warhol, along with contemporary artists Eric Fischl, Ramsey Dau, Carole Feuerman, Kim Gottlieb-Walker, Dana Louise Kirkpatrick, Gary Lang, Victor Matthews, Brendan Murphy, Ruth Pastine, Cole Sternberg, and Bernie Taupin -- among others.