National & International Adventures in Art

Last winter I was out walking with a friend in downtown Toronto and I looked down an alley near McCaul and Dundas Street. The sun was hitting a small patch of snow on a garage roof and it was melting quickly. It struck me, even from a hundred feet away, that it was something to see up close. I ran to it and shot it with people nearby having a conversation in a language I didn’t understand. The sun melted the snow and then the moment was gone, the clouds came and the magic passed.

“The Carpet and the Chair” was shot from my kitchen window last winter. I saw a relationship between the objects and a dialogue brought on by the snow. A Canadiana poem. With my one minute videos I record scenes that might be overlooked.

Flight Patterns, 18″ x 30″, ink, acrylic and oil pastel on paper, 2014 © Kathleen Reichelt

Painting is less about capturing and more about inventing. Even though sketching could include a moment in the park, the neighbour’s cat sleeping in my studio, painting is about fiction. Making it up. Sometimes theories are of interest to me but when I think about them too much I spend less time painting, drawing, filming, playing and ultimately what motivates me to make art is the aesthetic adventure and the unknown in the doing.

Postcard Postcard, 36″ x 48″, acrylic and graphite on canvas, 2012 © Kathleen Reichelt

As a multidisciplinary artist I work with video, painting, audio and performance. I like to approach them all as poetry. To write a poem with materials other than words.

Segal Garden with Maggy Bird Image © Kathleen Reichelt

Segal’s Garden with Maggy Birds (and the white box), 12.5″ x 12.5″ x 1.3″, wood, clay, paint, wire, thumb tacks, sheet music, 2013 © Kathleen Reichelt

Image Credits

All Images Are © Kathleen Reichelt

Kathleen Reichelt Artist Bio

Kathleen Reichelt has exhibited painting, video, audio and performance in museums and galleries both nationally and internationally. Her work has been shown at Toronto’s Lonsdale Gallery, the Arts & Letters Club, Fountain Enterprises, Milk Glass, Eastern Front, the Varley Gallery in Unionville and most recently at Folie Culture in Quebec City and tAD gallery in Denton, Texas. The artist has also performed at Fusion Gallery in NYC’s lower east side, the Silent Barn in Brooklyn, NY and the Theatre Centre Pop-Up in downtown Toronto.

The artist grew up in small town Fort Erie, across the border from Buffalo, New York. Her father, a realist painter, photographer and calligrapher was Kathleen’s first teacher. Kathleen completed her BA in Cultural Studies at Trent University before pursuing painting at Emily Carr School of Art & Design in Vancouver and later at the Ontario College of Art & Design in Toronto. The artist has also worked in theatre and is co-creator of 253469.

The artist’s next exhibition is September 20, 2014 at Art Zoo Studio in Toronto. Everyone is welcome to attend 2-4pm, at 1 Wiltshire Avenue, unit 132, (at Symington and Dupont). To see more of Reichelt’s work visit www.kathleenreicheltstudio.com.

Blog / Website: KathleenReicheltStudio.com